It is constructed in present simple. So it asks where I am coming from in general. How one can answer this question?
I know this question is correctly asked but I can't understand its meaning or what purpose it serves to. Can someone explain?
Note: I read Difference between "where are you from" and "where do you come from". It mainly concerns about differences, so it doesn't answer my question. It is not a duplicate.
It doesn't have an exact meaning - you yourself say "in general" in your queston. (Pretty much nothing does in conversational English).
One could quite legitimately answer "two stops away" if the question was asked on a bus, or "Earth" if asked on a distant space-station.
This phrase is most commonly used as part of "small talk" i.e. where the questioner is merely "making conversation" and doesn't actually care what the answer is.
