Government workers don’t negotiate for salary, instead they have a set scale based on their job’s pay grade, adjusted for the local cost of living. The lowest level jobs are GS1, followed by GS2, etc. Every GS1 working in the same area will receive the same salary
The “how are you” exchange is really just a conversation starter, a way for either one of you to talk about something that is on your mind. If you don’t reciprocate that, most people will just assume you don’t want to talk to them.
In general, if you just respond and don’t make any effort to ask questions or keep the conversation going, people will assume you don’t want to talk to them. You aren’t obligated to respond, but they are also not obligated to continue talking to someone who is clearly uninterested in talking to the .
So I guess the question is: Why do you want to talk to people if you aren’t interested in them at all?
If you’re looking for support and friendship, that is a 2-way street that requires you to support and care about them as well. Otherwise the other person can feel like you are just using them.
If you just feel that this is something you need to do to not feel like a failure, that’s different. It’s not a failure to struggle with something, even if it seems everyone else just “gets it”. It’s just human. You might be happier with more socializing, but you are fine and perfectly acceptable without it.
All that said, depression is also a liar. It will tell you that people don’t like you or at least don’t care. It will cherry-pick bad memories to drive a wedge between you and others to feed itself.
I hope at least some of this helps
Not just Americans. You won’t even commonly see them in mainland Europe
The major Abrahamic religions have the same root and have had a heavy influence on most of the world. This is largely due to the Roman empire and it’s successors adopting and spreading Christianity in Europe and the Muslim caliphates spreading Islam through the Middle East and Africa.
Further east, Hinduism is the largest polytheistic religion and features a number of prominent goddesses. Though Hinduism has a lot of variety and the exact deities and their genders change depending on the adherents.
Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism don’t really focus on any deities.
Those are the most widespread religions, many others were eradicated or sidelined by European imperialism. Out of those left, many are animist religions, believing in spirits that can be a variety of genders.
Some classical polytheistic religions are still practiced today. They usually have some major goddesses in the mix.
If you go back to ancient Mesopotamia, Inanna/Ishtar is the head of her pantheon.