Hardshipification

I think your response mostly didn't make sense. "What's that like" imposes a greater burden on you by requiring you to explain something again and again, and bluntly, I'm only going to be interested in that if me knowing helps you in some way, and I don't see why it would, but maybe it would, I wouldn't know, so it makes sense for me to just express willingness to help if needed, and that starts with "If you need to talk to someone, I’m here for you".

I get frustrated with imaginary social scripts too, but that part of the script is fine.

I had fun by ridiculing the entire situation, waiting it out while asking the doctors questions like:

• Can identical twin brothers transmit testicle cancer through sodomy?
• Can I keep my surgically removed ball? (For storing in a jar of formaldehyde)
• Does hair loss from chemotherapy proceed in the same stages as male pattern baldness?

If you were hoping we weren't going to want to know the answers to these questions, I gotta disappoint ya

It seems to me that many even not so close acquaintances may - simply out of genuine concern for a fellow human being that (in their conviction*) seems to be suffering - want to offer support, even if they may be clumsy in it as they're not used to the situation. I find that rather adorable; for once the humans show a bit of humaneness, even if I'd not be surprised if you're right that often it does not bring much (and even if I'd grant that they might do it mostly as long as it doesn't cost them much).

*I guess I'm not in a minority if I didn't know how extremely curable balls cancer apparently is.

I think the post nicely points out how some stoicism can be a sort of superpower in exactly such situations, but I think we should appreciate how the situation looks from the outside for normal humans who don't expect the victim to be as stoically protected as you were.

Hard agree. People might be traumatised by many things, but you don't really want to convince them they should be traumatised, or define their identity about trauma (and then possibly insist that if they swear up and down they aren't that just means they're really repressing or not admitting - this has happened to me). That only increases the suffering! If they're not traumatised, great - they dodged a bullet! It doesn't mean that e.g. sex assault is less bad - the same way shooting someone isn't any less bad just because you happened to miss their vital organs (ok, so actually the funny thing is I guess that attempted murder is punished less than actual murder... but morally speaking, I'd say how good a shot you are has no relevance).

My first guess is that there's a certain subpopulation for whom, if you treat their problems casually, joke about them, etc., then they'll get offended or hurt and cry while pointing a finger at you (perhaps literally), and thereby bring a bunch of social opprobrium upon you; and the acquaintances don't know enough to distinguish you from that subpopulation, and therefore treat you as though you might be one of them.  It's a "safe" strategy they're following; the cost to them if they're wrong is relatively small, compared to the cost to them making the opposite error.  (And perhaps they've done that all their life and don't have any practice joking about rough problems.)

(Take all guesses I make, about people I don't understand, with a big grain of salt.)

Well for the dark humour side of things...A surgical ward in UK for guys with testicular cancer was named "The lonely ballroom"

I think the standard messages are actually more energy efficient. Bad things happen, usually people are fine, but sometimes they need support and these messages signal that support is available. If you’re fine, they’re slightly annoying, but if you’re not fine, they’re helpful.

Your suggested approach actually requires more effort from both people in a typical case. If I were fine, I would rather receive “If you need to talk to someone, I’m here for you” than “What’s that like?” because I could answer the first message with an easy cliche, but I would have to think to answer the second.

(This is assuming you don’t know the person well. For close friends you can customize to their personality, but not everyone is a stoic rationalist.)

I didn’t play along and ended up saying things like: “Thanks, but I have friends I can talk to if I need it”.

Do you think the default thing to say in these cases should assume you have any friends period, or any "friends" you are willing to speak to?

I agree with those who are surprised that you are offended by this relatively innocuous part of the social script. However, it is also a useful lesson for me personally: my social skills aren’t great, so, even more than others, I usually drift along social situations by saying, more or less "ow, I’d hate that if I were you", "whoa, I find that thing you just said really interesting!", and then the conversation stalls because I don’t say anything else, or I add in my own anecdote and then it stalls, or the other person acknowledges that I said I was here for them and then the conversation stalls awkwardly, as in the specific case you described. And so, once more, I see someone (you, in this case), telling me that the way to make interesting conversations is to ask the other person to speak, in some form or another ("and how does that feel?", "tell me more", "nice, and you?", etc.). It should be obvious advice, but — as you show — I’m not the only one for whom it doesn’t always seem obvious or easy. Anyway, my point is, I should do that more often, thanks for the reminder!