"innocent question"??!?

sometimes in life it is the seemingly innocuous statements or questions that leave the most lasting impressions. I'm not talking about the thing I say that comes out wrong, and offends someone, lord knows I've had more than my share of those. No I'm speaking to the small thing that you wouldn't think would hammer someone so badly, but sticks in their heads and haunts their thoughts for weeks. I'm sure with my warped sense of humor that I am responsible for more than my fair share of those remarks to, so maybe it is just Karma that I should be so affected by the same thing these last few weeks.
what brings up this particular line of insanity you might ask, well here's the thing. I recently bumped into one of my old friends that I hadn't seen in quite some time. after talking to him for a while he asked me "Dude, what happened to you" on the surface this may not seem like a question that will alter your perception of your entire life, but depending on how it is said it could be an affirmation of a life turned around and lived to the benefit of all others, it could simply mean what have you been doing all these years, or in my case a condemnation of a lifetime of poor choices and unreached potential. then again maybe only a persons own perception of himself is how one would interpret the question. I still am not quite sure what response my friend was seeking, but I being the person I am deflected the question with a smart assed remark and moved the conversation on quickly. Yet I can't help thinking I missed an opportunity to really connect with a staunch friend of my youth, for the conversation quickly turned to mundane superficial nonsense from there and we both went our separate ways.
should I have asked what he meant by the question? Would I even want to hear the brutal assessment of my failure as a human from my good friend, and was he still enough of a friend to even tell me the unvarnished truth as he saw it? Is it better not to have put him on the spot like that, or would that have cemented again the friendship that we both once shared. Perhaps it was a harmless question and my neurotic introspection would have convinced him it would be nice not to see me again for another twenty years. At this point I guess I will never know. The only thing this has convinced me is, if a seemingly harmless question from an acquaintance you haven't seen in twenty years can cause you this much distress, you are not where you need to be in life. I remain as always a work in "progress"