I think it's less that people don't actually want to know than it is that people don't actually want to share. But I'm from the Midwest, originally, and that's just kind of how we are.

Expanding on this just a little bit... I think that, in the Midwest but I'm sure in many other distinct American cultural regions, there's a sort of shared, but subdued, understanding that each of us is uniquely going through some shit. We answer the way we do because we don't want to trouble others with said shit.