Often times you say "How are you?" and people respond "I'm fine." or "I'm OK, I guess." in English.
How could you express the same feeling in Spanish? "Bien" has always seemed to me be positive, and it doesn't seem to fit.
In Colombia to say "Fine, I guess" we say "Ahí vamos" (yes, in plural) meaning that you keep going on in spite of the hardships of life.
However when you answer "bien" it depends a lot on the tone. If you sound sad when you say "bien" it means you are not, but if you answer "¡¡¡¡¡BIEN!!!!!" people will believe you are absolutely fine.
There are more explicit answers like:
"Más o menos" (so-so)
"Regularcito" (so-so)
"me ha ido mejor", "he estado mejor" (I've seen better days)
"no tan bien como vos" (not as good as you) [I hate this one btw]
If you use one of these expect a follow up question but if you say "bien" even if it does not sound like you are ok, people will understand that you are not ok but you don't want to talk about it.
Bien
y generalmente se pregunta ¿y vos?
. Otras formas incluyen: Maso
(Más o menos, regular) o ahí... tirando
(de "tirando para no aflojar) o ahí, en la lucha
, como que la situación no esta del todo bien. Re piola
(lo usan las personas de bajos recursos para decir que están muy bien o que algo está muy bueno)
In Cuba you can found the following expressions:
"Todo bien" (All it's ok)
"Más o menos" (So so)
"De mal en peor" (From bad to worse)
And as @DGaleano says, we have too the situation of the tone in the word "bien".
In Venezuela this phrases can be possible answers:
Todo fino - (everything is OK)
Todo chévere - (everything is OK)
And I've heard to make the question as: ¿Cómo está la vaina?
In Spain we use next sentences:
Positive:
¡Genial!
¡Muy bien!
Neutral:
Tirando (So so)
Negative
Podría estar peor (I could be worse)
Mejor no preguntes... (don't ask me because my situation is awful)
But the polite (and more common) answer is bien
, you can not guess if that person it's ok or not.
In Mexico we have a lot of ways to express that feeling, and all of them depends on the type of relationship that you have with the other person and the kind of emotion that you want to express:
I'm fine :
I'm Ok, I guess: