People who treat "how are you" as an invitation to unload their entire situation on you

There is a guy at my job, lets call him Neil, and i have made the mistake of asking him how he's doing exactly three times in the past two months. Three times. The first time i was walking past his desk on the way to the printer and said it the way you say it, the social script version, the one where the correct answer is "good, you?" and everyone moves on with their lives.

Neil does not do the correct answer.

The first time he told me about his landlord situation for eleven minutes. I know it was eleven minutes because i was watching the clock behind his head trying to figure out how to escape. The second time i genuinely thought maybe it was a one off thing, people have bad days, i asked again. That time it was his car and a family thing and something about a neighbor that i lost the thread of around minute seven. By the third time i had basically already decided i wasnt going to ask again but i walked into the break room and he was already in there and it just came out of my mouth on autopilot and i watched myself say it in slow motion like no no no.

The thing that gets me is he always starts with "ugh, honestly?" Like that is the warning sound. I have started flinching when i hear it.

I understand people need to vent sometimes and i am not a completely cold person. But there is a version of answering that question that is honest without being a seventeen minute debrief. "Hanging in there" works. "Could be better" works. Even "a lot going on" works because that signals something without opening a door i did not knock on.

"How are you" is a greeting. It is not a therapy intake form.