When I got cancer, all of my acquaintances turned into automatons. Everyone I had zero-to-low degrees of social contact with started reaching out, saying the exact same thing: “If you need to talk to someone, I’m here for you”. No matter how tenuous the connection, people pledged their emotional support — including my father's wife's mother, who I met a few hours every other Christmas.

It was only a bit of testicle cancer — what's the big deal? No Swedish person had died from it for 20 years, and the risk of metastasis was below 1%. I settled in for a few months of suck — surgical ball removal and chemotherapy.

My friends, who knew me well, opted to support me with dark humour. When I told my satanist roommate that I had a ball tumour, he offered to “pop” it for me — it [...]

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Outline:

(01:16) A Difference in Value Judgements

(02:35) Hardshipification

(04:07) A Better Response

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First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.