This is superficially true, but I can completely sympathize with his position. After a lifetime of doing just as you say, my wife asked for divorce. Suddenly this small social lubricant that I never really noticed was just a jab into my pain...and people ask this A LOT. A few times I told people how I was, much as he described, and it didn't go well. It created the impression that I'd just have to deny out loud that I wasn't feeling what I was feeling. That no one cared about me, because the first thing anyone did was ask "how are you" without wanting the actual answer. Often, they ask while walking past and don't even wait for an answer, fake or not.

It felt different, not like the normal experience at all. That was a long time ago for me. As I learned to cope, this stopped being an issue.

Was I being self-centered and unreasonable? Probably. Doesn't change how it felt though. When I behaved as everyone expected, it was still raw, painful, and oh-so-frequent. If this guy deals with regularly telling people and their families that they are going to suffer the ravages of chemo/radiation to have too tiny a chance to live, not to mention the ones that he has to tell that they are going to die soon, that he has to say there is no option, that he has to cope with the immediate shock and denial. If he deals with the terrible question of "how long do I have?", if he deals with people that have families, if he deals with people who have no one - that all sounds horrifying. I wouldn't WANT a doctor (or anyone) to take that casually, but that also means I'm wanting that doctor to never escape those pains.

A friend of mine does therapy for low-income teens and she shuts the work portion of her brain down when not on the job. Doesn't even like to talk abstract concepts or read field-related articles. This mystifies me, because as a coder the difference between work and play is if I choose what to do, not if I'm programming. To have other interests I get, but to actively not want to think about something so large in my life would be at best bizarre. I'm guessing it's a similar issue to this author, and in his case people that pry are forcing him to think about it. And then those prying people try to connect by sharing their stories of cancer. I don't know of good stories about cancer - they are at best avoiding-the-worst stories.

So yeah, I don't see him learning what's expected, I see him telling us some side effects of what's expected. Hopefully I'll now be a bit more aware that someone being vague probably has a reason to be vague, and not follow my natural instinct to pry.

I prefer to reply "living the dream, you?".

"Better than many, not as good as some".

Seriously, the small talk exists precisely so we don’t have to get into shit we’d rather not get into. Not because everyone thinks the weather is actually fascinating.

This is likely an extremely recent modern view of citified, housed people who work in offices. Try camping for six years or getting a job that involves working out in the weather. You will likely find yourself developing a keen and genuine interest in the weather.

He already knew the answer; in fact, he refers to that in the text.

I've taken a cue from the French, and usually respond with "it's going".