I'd lump this in with so much other inspirational advice (e.g. "Dance like nobody is watching! Love like you've never been hurt!") that is well-intended but hugely impractical.
I think there are finely-tuned social algorithms that we innately follow. For example when meeting somebody we often perform the progressive self-disclosure algorithm in an attempt to find mutual talking points, so maybe yeah you say that you're into drinking IPAs or some other stereotypical thing, that's great.
The reason such a protocol is highly effective is you want to establish somebody's feelings about you before disclosing a huge amount.
Yeah, so much of in-person interaction is attempting to suss out the size and orientation of the personal Overton windows of your counterparts so that you can both find the overlap and take a peek through to the other side without sticking your whole head in and having to hear and smell the sights too. Walking around "with the shutters open" can speedrun things a bit, but it isn't practical in many contexts (work, community events, etc) or for people who have a public image. The whole point of smalltalk is to avoid being pulled into public largetalk, not because people are incapable or have no ideas about larger things.
People say things like this but I remember a time when there was a lot more "acceptable" eccentricity. I'm only in my late 40s so it wasn't too long ago.
The article misses the other half of being interesting: being interested. If you're not able to find your counterpart interesting, they'll find you boring.
The proliferation of identities and labels like "neurodivergent" is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
I never got diagnosed as a schizotype in school but they tried really hard to accommodate me anyway. Today I would be misdiagnosed as ADHD or autistic. Today there is a two-class system in school between people who have a diagnosis who can get little accommodations like another two minutes to use the bathroom and people without a diagnosis who have to ride on the back of the bus.
My wife and I live above a bar frequented by tourists and the bartender is a friend of mine. When it isn’t busy, I’ll usually go down there order a soda and just talk to whoever shows up. The easy opener once the conversation starts is “what keeps you busy?” and keep the conversation going. This lets them talk about work, family, hobbies or whatever else they like to talk about
I read a book that said you should try something new to you at least every quarter if not more often. It gives you something to talk about.
While my wife and I are empty nesters and at point where we travel a lot and we do the digital nomad thing in spurts so we can always talk about travel or more often ask “what’s the most interesting place you’ve been to”/“What’s interesting about where you live” etc, it doesn’t have to be travel.
And just to be clear, it’s always either guys I am striking a conversation with or couples. There is no way for a 50 year old married guy to talk to a woman alone at the bar without coming off like a creep.
On the other hand, I try not to talk about politics or religion. What’s the point?
not OP and not sure of the book but if you're interested in material like this, check out Derek Sivers' work - usually revolves around stepping outside your comfort zone, exploring new ideas, etc.
> There is no way for a 50 year old married guy to talk to a woman alone at the bar without coming off like a creep.
Not true. You have to engage in a way that signals very clearly you don't really give much of a shit about talking to her, and your social status is higher than hers.
For example, if you're having a conversation with your bartender friend and you need a female perspective to settle a disagreement, and you ask for it without fully "engaging" with her, that'll work fine. Once she's been pulled in you will have to keep hooking her into the conversation with interesting tidbits, but eventually most women will just keep talking.
I am not big into going to bars but I'd say post-50 I have no problem talking to women and not being a "creep". Somehow I am really avuncular and rarely perceived a sexual threat. When I was younger I had more of that problem and was intimidated by beautiful people, a month ago I shook hands with a former Miss America.
Attraction does sometimes come up with women who are 10 years younger than me but otherwise I think it is a non-issue.
I am not either for the most part by myself. It just so happens that I live in a vacation area where my wife and I are the only permanent residence of a condotel (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/condotel.asp). I go down to hang out with the bartender. It’s mostly guys and couples getting away from their kids after spending all day at the parks (Orlando).
The bar is literally downstairs from where we live.
My wife and I also usually sit at the bar when we go somewhere and just talk to people whenever we go out.
No, it's very much yours and the way you phrased it. Perhaps you didn't mean it this way, but you sound like some kind of "pickup artist" type giving advice on "negging" women.
Since I didn't mention how to do anything, seems like he was projecting his biases on my words. Pretty sad that "be someone worth talking to" and "don't project neediness" are somehow owned by the manosphere now. No wonder people are marrying chatbots.
Not to mention that humans seem to have a fixed (yet variable, compared to the entire population) amount of energy they're each able to spend. Sometimes very interesting people gatekeep their authenticity to protect and preserve what they have to offer others, especially to strangers, coworkers, clients, even family.
I think the general message of bravery in authenticity is very important on a personal level, and incredibly subjective with regards to anybody external.
When a vampire knocks on your door, do you always invite them in?
Wasn’t to me either. It’s a learned skill that you can study and practice. I am only child. About a decade ago I saw one of two ways to make above my 2nd tier city enterprise dev wages - about $150K - either “grind leetCode and work for a FAANG” (r/cscareerquestions) or go into customer facing consulting where I would be required to do the business dinners and small talk.
I chose the latter. At 45+, there is no age discrimination in consulting - I still do hands on keyboard coding + cloud. Even before I got into consulting (working full time for consulting companies), I had roles inside companies where I interviewed with new to company directors/CTOs who were looking for someone who could get things done not reversing a b tree on the whiteboard. I had to learn how to talk. I haven’t had a coding interview since 2012 and I’ve worked for 6 companies since then
Do you think that the people who dance like no one is watching or who love like they’ve never been hurt are on average happier or unhappier than the average person? Are they happier or unhappier than the people who dance like everyone is watching or who love like they’ve always been hurt?
I meant in comparison to the reward. Loving recklessly isn't much more deeply and could make you hurt significantly. Dancing confidently isn't rewarded compared to bimeinf embarrassed for dancing badlt.
It seems like you have really strongly held beliefs about these things that are based more in how you’d like the world to be than how it really is.
Even if you think there is a small benefit to dancing confidently compared to dancing insecurely, what specifically is the big relative risk of dancing confidently. What will go wrong?
When you put it that way; I guess after some reflection, I realize my algorithm is optimized for efficiency and I immediately try to hone in on strong agreements or disagreements in taste/politics/etc. so that I don't waste my time getting to know a shitty person, or miss out on a potential best friend.
These means engaging in a level of provocative speech/behavior that sometimes makes people uncomfortable (not my problem of course; I have little interest in euphemism or politeness, my energy goes toward transparency and kindness)
Progressive self-disclosure can have its uses but if I can't break the ice in two minutes with a stranger, it's not a good sign for our compatibility.
Now, I did grow up in an environment where I was never really allowed to exist. I am an atheist raised by an hyper-abusive, hyper-religious, ex-boxer Catholic deacon in an extremely conservative part of the United States. The police were at my house every couple of weeks. So this may have influenced my comfort with radical transparency; I had to learn at a young age to literally fight constantly for my right to think my own way, and I'm ready to do that at any time.
But I have definitely been in some neighborhoods where the most interaction you should have with a stranger is a nod of the head, anything more is asking for trouble no matter who you are. I can vouch that there are harsh urban environments which prevent, by design, even progressive disclosure from being a safe option. This effectively kills any chance at real unity in the community, and drives up crime statistics, further justifying the continued disunification tactics.
It would be cool to catalog, categorize and analyze these kinds of social algorithms. It seems like an interesting cross-disciplinary field, involving psychology, sociology, game theory, cultural anthropology, etc.
If I meet somebody that immediately skips the progressive self-disclosure small talk and jumps right in to a big discussion… I’m going to withdraw. Even if I agree with everything you’re saying, it comes off as aggressive. like youre trying to speed run forming a relationship by skipping the small talk
No, I'm just not going to progressively disclose my nature. I'm just going to be myself, regardless of how others in my environment might react.
I can field the small talk, several of my friends have commented on my ability to break the ice quickly with strangers. But after a minute or two, the conversation is either over or we're moving onto more interesting discussions.
Come to one of the conservative towns I grew up in and you'll understand the need for such a mentality. Progressive disclosure can lead to things like accepting racism, sexism and other injustices.
It's a good mentality to carry forth into other environments as well, because at the end of the day, the less masks I have to carry, the better.
You don't sound like someone I'd like to speak with even if we might agree on things. You writing has a very aggressive tone to it for no reason.
I'll be honest if someone tries to get into politics and other such things very soon after I start speaking to them it really puts me off. I might not disengage right away, but I'll probably never choose to speak with them again.
I think both of you are projecting an aggression tone onto my words. Poe's law, maybe.
It shouldn't offend you that I don't personally enjoy continued small talk and prefer to form deeper connections at the risk of losing superficial connections, by not engaging in drawn-out progressive disclosure.
You're making assumptions about our compatibility without knowing much about me at all. But, this was my point: Now I know that we don't need to continue the discussion and we can both spend our energy elsewhere.
As a neutral 3rd-party who wants to help you speed-run your self-growth (because I like your energy):
- Yeah you come across as aggro. That's okay, sounds like you went through some stuff.
- Sounds like you've identified you grew up in a weird situation. That sounds bad, sucks you had to go through that.
- But it also sounds like there's a piece of you that's trying to overcorrect. I understand, it's common among us nerds -- you grow up in a situation where you aren't as appreciated as you should be and you try to turn off that feeling entirely somehow. Unfortunately these types of attempts to hack our own feelings are usually worse than the problems in the first place. Usually the best course is to slowly try to remind yourself (over years) "That was a bad situation, it was bad luck, it meant nothing, and it's not the norm. I don't need to fundamentally change to not have that happen again."
I do appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I still believe that you and the two other commenters here are misreading or misinterpreting me.
That's a lesson for me to choose my words more carefully, but only to avoid misinterpretation in an online forum; everything I said, I 100% stand by, and it's honestly unsurprising that a comment about being provocative and to-the-point, not always progressively self-disclosing, has made some people uncomfortable.
> Unfortunately these types of attempts to hack our own feelings are usually worse than the problems in the first place
I want to stress that I mean this in the most constructive, positive way possible, but it feels like your comment projects a bit onto me in an attempt to find common ground. I welcome the attempt but I do want to point out that I don't try to "hack my feelings", and I don't organize my life and behaviors under some fear that my childhood is somehow going to happen again. I am very in touch with my feelings, I value emotional intelligence and reflection. I don't pathologically worry about others appreciating me.
I brought up my past to show how such a perspective might form, but the perspective is not some kind of defense mechanism. It is a playbook for how to live my life in a way that aligns with my ideals and goals, and it's one of the only good things to have come out of my childhood. I cherish my perspective and how it's allowed me to help both myself and others.
Well the reason I said it sounds like you were trying to "hack" feelings was that you mentioned you came up with your own social "algorithm" for testing people you meet that could make them uncomfortable. It's been my observation that most attempts to optimize conversation backfire.
But I'm not really trying to convince you, I don't have a horse in this race. If you want maybe ask an AI and see what it thinks, they are great neutral tool for being a judge on human tone or being a social mirror.
> you mentioned you came up with your own social "algorithm" for testing people you meet that could make them uncomfortable
I didn't say that, reread my comments. I have no interest in "testing" people like some sort of sociopath. You mentioned the algorithm of progressive disclosure. I said that I specifically do not do this whenever I can help it, and mused about why that is, and why it might be so for others raised in certain communities.
I said I quickly like to discover who other people are and communicate who I am, to skip all of the progressive disclosure crap and either come to terms with the fact that we aren't compatible, or to find a thread to start pulling and weaving into a relationship.
> It's been my observation that most attempts to optimize conversation backfire.
Progressive disclosure is an optimization. It's just optimizing for different things. I don't walk into a random conversation with someone planning to control how the conversation unfolds, or "optimize" it. But anyone with experience in public speaking, or leadership, sales, political organization or other environments which necessitate the ability to navigate and calibrate conversations, will learn a few tricks for keeping things on track or avoiding dull moments.
Conversational speaking is a skill, and getting better at it for the sake of improving your ability to communicate is not "hacking" or "optimizing" the conversation. I think you have decided on a bunch of behaviors in your head that I simply do not engage in.
> If you want maybe ask an AI and see what it thinks, they are great neutral tool for being a judge on human tone or being a social mirror
I have dumped my entire HN history into chatbots to study my conversational approach and learn from it. Self-betterment is always a work in progress, but I simply do not engage in the behaviors you've decided I engage in without even meeting me.
This thread has turned into a series of misunderstandings from multiple users, none of whom ever stopped to seek to understand or ask for more detail before making assumptions. Instead, I had to field several bad assumptions from people who were ironically claiming that someone whom they've never met, but simulated in their head based on a single comment, is aggressive or annoying to be around. It's ironic because, from my perspective, all of these assumptions represent missed chances for us to seek understanding from each other, and shift this from a conversation to a debate, which to me is aggressive.
I simply shared my perspective. This thread did not need to evolve this way. If I were the first user replying to my post, I would ask more questions to clarify my understanding before just deciding for myself that someone is annoying to be around because they said they like to be themselves from the jump when meeting others.
How about we go the other direction: how to stop being bored by other people.
Most people are fascinating if you engage with them in good will and solidarity. That doesn't mean you have to like them or support every opinion they hold or behavior they exhibit, but just take them as they are and figure out what they are interested in.
I have been surprised to find that many "boring" people are, instead, shy and are much more interesting than the extroverts that are usually labeled as such.
Actually this is the best advice I've heard to not being boring yourself. If you are earnestly interested in the other person's interests, wants, dreams, what have you, they will find you interesting.
This post is slightly different about not being bland/non-weird, which is another thing--be yourself out loud.
I know I do edit what I say to new people that I meet, because they probably actually aren't interested in my several deep but narrow interests--I can tell by my Youtube feed. I am unapologetically weird and totally fine with progressive disclosure. I suppose if we have common interests but they act similarly it would be a missed opportunity--I should give more signals, the equivalent of wearing my fave band T-shirt, like mentioning things regularly in casual small talk.
If anything I've edited my own life down for simplicity and focus: family, friends, some aspects of work, and a handful of lasting interests. If you don't care what other people think, a lot of things just become unimportant.
I think speaks more to a certain personality type than a set of general social protocols. This person feels like their personality was worn down to something boring by trying to fit into social systems that arguably were not designed for them. What I see here is two systems that operate at different levels of abstraction. The author's is focused on special interests, systemic critique ("be polarizing" from the post), and meta-conversation. The other is focused on lived experience, emotional shorthand, shared cultural assumptions, and relational smoothing. Neither is right or wrong, but there can be a cultural clash and misunderstandings if the two are not both recognized as valid and rich in their own way.
Not everyone is going to value weirdness. That doesn't necessarily make them boring. It doesn't mean they are incapable of revealing interesting truths about themselves - but the author may be unable to detect those for what they are due to his own cultural bias.
Being shy, small, and sensitive as a kid, I feel like I could have been particularly susceptible to censoring myself. I felt shame very easily, but a large portion of this came from a handful of loud close minded people around me and bullies.
As an adult I know the rules better and can better identify when someone reacts unduly to some quality of mine. That, and I keep better company now—other adults.
I would not go so far as the article suggests, as to be polarizing; I take it as them just going a little hyperbolic in their point. Just I want to be a bit more accepting of myself as well as others. And some people will still dislike me no matter how much I try to hide my personality. Those people are not worth it
> They're saying what they actually think and wearing what they actually like, pursuing hobbies that genuinely fascinate them, regardless of whether those hobbies are cool.
Joke's on you, OP - even being like that you'll still find people who think you're boring because it's subjective.
Truth is, once youth passes, over time people become increasingly disinterested in others. This effect was exacerbated by the recent pandemic.
You might be a genuinely fascinating and authentic person, yet all that is going to fall flat in a crowd whose reaction to going outside is "ugh, people".
What really works is showing genuine interest in others. It's such a rare thing in this day and age that many are surprised when they experience it.
> Truth is, once youth passes, over time people become increasingly disinterested in others.
I find almost exactly the opposite is true. As you age your perceived value lessens, while you find the nuances of human behaviour ever more fascinating. Meanwhile many of the current cohort of twenty somethings seem disinterested in everything, including one another.
I would extend that to thirty somethings, so my generation as well.
Over time most of the people this age in my extended social circle kind of... faded. I don't know what caused this but I find myself increasingly socialising with younger people because they still haven't retreated to the comfort of their "me time" activities.
In the US, I think that not doing the boring thing, which is spending time during 20s working or studying for a handful of career paths, climbing up the career ladder, saving up for downpayment for land in the richer areas of a handful of expensive cities, etc comes with huge costs.
The cost is that when you are 40 and you either have stable finances such that you can provide your kids with an acceptable amount of healthcare and education and housing stability, and you will be able to retire, or you get to 40 and you have to start sacrificing the goal of raising kids within the aforementioned parameters.
Maybe that is how it always was, it just wasn't a "known" thing so people didn't incorporate it into the decision making when they were 20.
"... over time people become increasingly disinterested in others."
The average person perhaps. I find as I get older that people become more fascinating to me. Maybe I've just gotten better at listening and identifying interesting things about them.
Would agree wholeheartedly with this. Once you drill down into a person, you will eventually find an aspect of them that approaches life in a way you do not, and in a way which increases your appreciation for the depth of human experience if you listen closely enough. The signals the author are clued in on here are superficial to me. Idiosyncratic consumptions, a controversial political take or two? Sure, those can tickle one's curiosity, but they are only entrances to possible points of uniqueness and can be easily faked. Obviously you can't know everyone, nor should you want to, so these are just proxies the author uses to find people they want to spend their limited time with rather than in my opinion actual "not-boring" people.
No, but you're already the second person to ask this, meaning I now have to see this place.
I'm not American, but I was meaning to visit Altoona, PA as, according to one person living there, it was "the most average town in US". Unfortunately Luigi Mangione put it on the map, so it most certainly lost that title by now.
I was in a group conversation last week where everyone was discussing what sophisticated new TV shows they were watching. When it got to me I said, “My family is really into Sabrina the Teenage Witch right now. It holds up really well and Salem the cat is absolutely hysterical.” The look I got was hilarious.
> This happens gradually. In middle school, you learn that certain enthusiasms are embarrassing. In high school, you learn which opinions are acceptable in your social group. In college, you refine your persona further. By the time you're an adult, you've become so skilled at reading rooms and ajusting accordingly that you don't even notice you're doing it. You've automated your own inauthenticity.
What the author is describing is called masking/social camouflage. It is usually a symptom of something deeper - be it low self-esteem, infant trauma, etc. I am not a mental health expert, but I do think that getting to the original cause and treating that will tend to give better results than concentrating on the symptoms.
Low self esteem and conformism, especially strong in the US where the mainstream culture is based on Northern European social norms and puritanism. The tolerance for excentricity is very low.
It can be a symptom of that... but it's also what basically every single person does to some degree. Not doing it at all is also a sign of mental issues. Just different varieties.
Lately I've been "going out-as-a-fox" to get smiles from people when I do street photography. As-a-fox I never push on a string but somehow I wind up being approached by several people a day who I had out "tokens" to that link to my photography. It started out when I realized I could get away with wearing an animal ear hood in public rather than an animal ear headband and at first I looked at it from the frame of character acting -- I started doing photography as-a-fox because I do photography all the time, but when I was forced to explain what I was doing I developed "foxographer" as a cover story but getting the role made it all real, even when I do a shabby job of my adjustments I am finding that people in my environment believe in my character and I'm developing a number of self-working routines that make the whole thing easy.
I've been interested in developing charisma and related subjects for a long time and this character breaks the assumptions I've made all this time (this is the first one who doesn't try to stand taller than I do!) but it puts a zero on the right side of all my KPIs.
I've been talking to my therapist about something similar - masking, as someone else in the comments mentioned.
And one thing that I've been thinking about as a result is that I don't owe anyone my authentic self.
Asking me to reveal more things about myself is asking a hell of a lot, actually. So maybe I'm boring on purpose, because I don't want to get into an argument with a random parent on the playground, or a random stranger on a bus, or a random receptionist at the doctor.
I'll be interesting to the people I'm interested in, and boring to everyone else.
that makes sense, since to be authentic, you need to be vulnerable.
Maybe what the article means is not so much to bring up something deeply personal, but to show a unique part of yourself.
I remember a guy came to work on my heating system and while he was wrapping up, somehow he told me he liked slot machines. That led to a 15 minute discussion about them.
Next he told me his wife let him keep 6 of them in his living room and he showed me pictures.
I think that was not revealing too much personal stuff, but an enthusiasm for something that added life to the conversation.
So maybe carefully think of things you can reveal that make you who you are, without pulling back the curtain completely.
Marginally related, I feel the same way about honesty, especially in a work context.
I’ve always prided myself in being an honest but considerate person.
A recent experience with a colleague who weaponised my honesty in an attempt to manipulate me has left a foul taste in my mouth. Luckily their contract ended and the problem resolved itself.
But I remember distinctly feeling that I will
be professional and polite but I do not automatically owe anyone my honesty.
Boredom is actually a good thing to experience. Modern life seeks to devour every morsel of our attention.
Are you able to sit motionless looking at a tree for 3 minutes? Can you read a book for an hour? Can you focus intensely on a work project for 2-3 hours?
If not, you may need more boredom to enhance your connection with "mundane" things. Trying to be interesting/authentic/not boring may lead to cheap thrills and provocative experiences moment by moment, which de-train your focus and attention for those very hard tasks you need/want to do in life.
The author seems more about authenticity than boring-ness. And using the label boring vs bored, it comes to a similar outcome.
If I say, that guy is boring, he's inauthentic/poser/wanna-be, in my opinion I've failed that interaction. I am not engaging with him, I label him too mundane.
Yet, every person has genuine authenticity and need for connection, if you're attentive and patient enough to see it.
If you go around being frank and blasting your true opinions and true passions at everyone, you may miss a chance to learn more about them themselves, and move past the "boring" label you're putting, to see the real, struggling, suffering, but inherently interesting person underneath.
There is an issue with these folks though. They quite often are hyper-gatekeepers because of their own insecurity about not being "legit." They tend to be over-critical and thus quite tedious (& socially precarious) to talk to.
In general "being a person who", that is projecting identity, is boring. This is why you need polarization as a crutch. Being someone who's into competitive puzzle-solving, pop punk, or birdwatching is exactly the focus group tested "say something about yourself" no one really needs.
Now, having gone to a pop punk concert and sharing some observation about the crowd or surprising opening act might be interesting. Noticing that a lot of induction puzzles are based on simple features like even/odd is less interesting but still might interest someone.
Reading the room itself is generally considered interesting. If you go for a minute or two about the induction puzzles and your colleague/date/whoever shows no interest, you can turn mid-sentence and imputing "so... no interest in induction puzzles, the last one you saw was in third grade and even then it wasn't your first choice." It's just good conversation.
I see an analogy to the notoriously difficult-to-implement recommendation of "just be yourself. Be natural. Relax."
We all (except children generally) wear masks. Sometimes the same mask we've been wearing since teenager-hood. It's unclear what's left under the mask.
Funnily, "interesting" is one of those characteristics that follow the "there's nothing less X than someone who wants to seem X". Along with "cool", "manly" and probably dozen others.
This isn't the first time that I've seen interestingness treated like a virtue.
Honestly, I like it and agree that it makes a very good virtue.
But at the same time, I don't think we have a good enough collective understanding of what it means for something to be interesting to use it this way. Complexity isn't noise or quantity. It's also not exactly measured by our emotional or cognitive response to something. It's kind of measured that way, but in a noisy and unreliable way if that makes sense?
Anyways, go read Godel Escher Bach. Much more interesting than anything I've got to say on the matter.
"Be yourself" and "be polarizing" are the author's two suggestions to... avoid boring her, specifically? Or to avoid boring everybody? I'm not sure she quite understands what makes people tick.
I don't agree that personal styles of weirdness are a desirable social style. I agree that bland dinner-party persona is oversubscribed. I agree that quitting hobbies from social pressure is needless self-erasure. My take is that we need a both-and answer.
To consider an extreme obvious counter-example, think of a cross-cultural situation where social conventions vary widely and adjustment is needed, and then consider that we all hail from our own microcultures with their own customs and expectations.
The real balance to achieve is being who we are in a way that doesn't alienate others. Fully accepting both self and other.
Being "weird" is fine, but a lot of people dont know how to be normal about being "weird". When it feels like theres walls of perpetual irony to one's personality or embarrassment of one's own interests it rarely bodes well.
Doesn't mean you have to reveal every single interest, just have a little confidence towards the ones that do, whether or not you misread and how they land.
Sure, be polarizing, have opinions. But be careful not to be judgemental. Be open minded, don't judge too soon when other opinions don't match yours, don't label people. Let's stay nice.
In that sense I don't really get the "some people wont like you". I think it pretty poor form if you don't like people that have a different opinion. How can you not be interested in learning a different view on things?
I've been having this conversation with some of the children in my life. They frequently refer to a subset of their peers as "boring" and I bristle ever time I hear it. I try to suggest that other people are not here for our entertainment and therefore deciding that they are boring is to misunderstand the relationship. As you might imagine, the suggestion is not sinking in.
Not the first time I've read descriptions of this kind of behavior (let's call it social conformity) presented as perfectly normal, and I read comments (here and elsewhere) that largely confirm this is normal.
It's pathological dysfunction, however common it may be.
I hide my hobbies because I think they're pretty cringe (mushroom picking, making kombucha, among others) but when people find out they're always interested and want to learn more, or at least they act that way.
Well both of them require near-autistic levels of attention to detail and knowledge. I used to be a scientist and so having a lab book to track different kombucha experiments satisfies that need, and detailed knowledge is obviously required for mushroom picking (and subsequent eating)
Nothing at all if you ask me. I consider myself boring and lazy, and I’m content with that. Not unrelated (but not necessarily causally connected), I also consider myself extraordinarily lucky that I find myself in a time where my basic needs are met almost by default. I guess it’s easy to be content when you don’t put high demands on yourself.
There's something to be said for the social losses associated with it. People who are truly boring don't tend to get noticed for social events, dates, promotions, etc. It can be hard for someone to realize they're not all that important or significant to anyone - being a mild addition that doesn't hurt any given event or situation, but no one is bothered by their absence either.
I would answer that question, except my thoughts put me to sleep.
More seriously though: the article is one person's opinion on what makes a boring person and their pet solution. It may work for them, but it won't work for everyone.
It really boils down to the question: what is a boring person? The answer to that will be a subjective one. I would argue a boring people include those who are passionate about sports. A significant proportion of humanity will violently disagree with me. The minute that I open my mouth about my interests, they will migrate to someone who is talking about the latest game. It won't matter whether the interest comes naturally or is cultivated.
I mostly disagree with the author's point about reading audiences. About the only point I do agree with is that we shouldn't let the audience define who we are. I will also concede that having a shallow knowledge of a topic, simply to fit in, will make for boring conversation. But a shallow knowledge to fit in isn't how I describe defining one's interests to fit in.
"Boring" is the opposite of "interesting" (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/boring). "Interesting" is new, attractive, good. "Boring" is old news, unattractive, bad. Not exactly "bad", as in "I actively dislike this", of course.
Boring in this case means something like "unmemorable" or "indiscernible". The great big dice roll that happens for everyone at the start of the big game has way too many variables to land on the same values twice, so being boring is a choice to hide the diff between you and the person you're talking to. ("Audit what you've hidden" is a neat way to phrase that.)
If you rolled all 1s for charisma, that would be unboring, it'd be memorable!
I think cool people make more money, have more opportunities, probably have more fun. But don't get me wrong, the epicurean hedonist in me sometimes wants to just chill and eat bread and water.
No one in the whole world is boring, because “boring” is not trait, it’s a relationship. For any given person there is some set of people who are interested in him, and many others who are not.
Do you want to be loved? Then offer love and be lovable. Do you want to be valued? Then value things and be a valuable.
>"Somewhere along the way, too many of us learned to sand off our weird edges, to preemptively remove anything that might make someone uncomfortable or make us seem difficult to be around."
As an adult you learn that showing your true self can be dangerous in an environment where you don't know who can be trusted. We don't get the allowance of children to be weird or awkward. Others are gunning for us, and looking for any possible weakness. One wrong impression can drastically affect your life. So you curate yourself in a way that keeps your personality for those who can be trusted to accept and understand it, and others may see that as boring until they've been let in. It's just maturity; you have to earn the right to have me let my guard down around you.
Unless it's a context with a minimum required codex such as work.
But in your relationships, if you want to have meaningful ones, you need to find those where you can be yourself.
It's better to have 1 or 2 true friends (hell, most people don't have that many, you're lucky if you do) than knowing and being popular among dozens for a filtered/fake persona you built so others like you.
Doesn't almost every situation have a minimum required codex?
Sure, you should be yourself with your friends. But if they are already your friends, then you are likely already interesting enough. I thought the article was more about how to be interesting to people who don't already know you.
Well said, this was similar to what I was thinking while reading this. Acting in a completely unfiltered way can get you into fights, arrested, or worse.
People who are normally perceived as non-boring (like talkative, outgoing, friendly-by-default people) are usually insufferable for me.
People who are initially perceived as boring (like quiet, introspective, focused people) are more fascinating if you can get through to them. Unfortunately, I have no such skills...
Very true! The most interesting people do not force themselves to be interesting. The key takeaway here is not to "edit yourself" or copy others constantly. Most people seem to play follow the leader.
Sadly, it’s a societal issue as we are told to be X or Y. Boys wear blue and hang with the fellas. Girls wear pink and have tea with the ladies. Go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, die.
No one is ever like climb Everest, surf in Indonesia, backpack Europe, get lost in the wilderness.
I don’t edit who I am. I simply stopped sharing any parts of myself with people I don’t know, preferring to keep things to business most of the time. I’m insanely weird, by most people’s definition of weird, and I’m okay with that. I just don’t need reactions while I’m conducting my daily business. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.
I have to say that nothing (besides an AI generated header image) screams "I am going to say something boring and unremarkable" more than sticking an unsplash stock image completely unrelated to the article content on the top of the page. Want your website to be memorable? Be like a certain other website that was submitted to HN recently and put a video of your homebrew surgery on the front page, I will remember that one for a long time for sure.
I jest, but honestly, this article isn't that interesting. It seems to be a rehash of the entire individualizing 21c ethos of "be authentic! Be yourself!" (Just don't question why do all those authentic people all end up listening to punk music, drink IPAs, ride fixies and take photos on film cameras.) I find this view disturbingly narcissistic and, frankly, insulting to those of us who changed ourselves in the presence of others because we want to and like it. I would not be listening to country which I previously considered boring if I never dated a person who does. Am I a lesser person now because I have caved to social pressure or whatever?
It is also rather amusing that the examples of "polarizing" figures are a cookbook author and one of the less remembered figures or new atheism. Try telling others you like Richard Dawkins (whose polarizing views are precisely why he is still a prominent public figure.) Try telling others you enjoy Kid Rock (who I consider, at best, a boring musician propped up purely by ideological reasons.)
Fear of being called pretentious has caused people to self-defensively amputate their organs of taste and discernment. They select from among the available consumer choices to build their identity instead.
What the author mistakes as interestingness is the courage to develop and render judgement, and a resolve to live a life built from the consequences of doing so.
Early in my career, I'd go to work and ask people 'do anything last night?' and we would both basically say: Not really.
I decided I did not want to be boring. I decided to spend an hour at least on something I found interesting or economically useful. I started a company, would learn programming(now I'm a pro programmer), I learned a few different arts (great for relating to a different set of people when you explain you draw, paint, sew, and crochet)...
Whatever the case, I think there was economic benefits to 'not being boring'. However you really need to push yourself, its way easier to veg out on the couch to fiction. I think caffeine and weed helped me initially, now its just my normal lifestyle.
1. There is a distinction between appearing boring and being boring. The object isn't to seem interesting. The object is to be what you ought. Defining yourself according to the expectations of others instead of what is objectively good is what produces boring people.
2. People often vacillate between conformity and contrarianism. This is what juvenile edgelords on the internet are about. Both conformists and contrarians are trapped inside the same silly paradigm. Both define themselves and behave not in terms of the truth, to which all intelligence and behavior must conform, but in relation to others and what they think. A conformist assumes a persona that agrees with others in their social setting, regardless of whether it is objectively good. A contrarian takes what agrees with others and negates it, regardless of whether it is objectively good. Both are mindless, reflexive, and boring. Both lack substance. Both are empty theater rooted in people-pleasing and approval-seeking. Both are dishonest, cowardly acts of deception.
3. Reading a room isn't about people-pleasing. It's about empathy so that you can response in the way that is good and needed. If you enter a funeral parlor, you don't crack jokes or paint your toenails. You recognize there are people grieving there, that a dead person is being honored. In other words, you also consider, within reason, the good of others in the room, and you respond to the facts as they are, even when pursuing your own goals.
4. One flaw in the "I gotta be ME!" schtick is that it idolizes the self. It makes a god of the self. It puts unmoored desires above the truth instead of rooting desires in the truth. There are plenty of desires that ought not to be indulged, at least not indulged in certain ways or at certain times. The point is that your behavior ought to occur within the scope of reason. What is evil and wrong is always outside of reason.
5. Life can be messy. We can be messy. When that is the case, the goal isn't to keep messing it up or to run with our own mess toward the abyss. These messes, our mess, is a kind of cross we bear for the good. They're things we struggle with, not surrender to. If someone has a tendency to overeat, it might be difficult to resist, but it is good for him to practice fasting. If someone has a habit to reach for porn, it may be painful to resist, but it is good for him to resist and to avoid so that he can overcome the habit instead of wallowing in slavish submission to that awful vice. If someone has a tendency toward irascibility and wrath, it may feel satisfying to indulge it in the moment, but practicing meekness is the true reward. If someone has trouble with envy, tearing someone down may scratch that itch, but responding with selfless good will is freedom. Triumph over vice makes us interesting. Succumbing to its easiness makes us boring.
I'd lump this in with so much other inspirational advice (e.g. "Dance like nobody is watching! Love like you've never been hurt!") that is well-intended but hugely impractical.
I think there are finely-tuned social algorithms that we innately follow. For example when meeting somebody we often perform the progressive self-disclosure algorithm in an attempt to find mutual talking points, so maybe yeah you say that you're into drinking IPAs or some other stereotypical thing, that's great.
The reason such a protocol is highly effective is you want to establish somebody's feelings about you before disclosing a huge amount.
Yeah, so much of in-person interaction is attempting to suss out the size and orientation of the personal Overton windows of your counterparts so that you can both find the overlap and take a peek through to the other side without sticking your whole head in and having to hear and smell the sights too. Walking around "with the shutters open" can speedrun things a bit, but it isn't practical in many contexts (work, community events, etc) or for people who have a public image. The whole point of smalltalk is to avoid being pulled into public largetalk, not because people are incapable or have no ideas about larger things.
People say things like this but I remember a time when there was a lot more "acceptable" eccentricity. I'm only in my late 40s so it wasn't too long ago.
The article misses the other half of being interesting: being interested. If you're not able to find your counterpart interesting, they'll find you boring.
The proliferation of identities and labels like "neurodivergent" is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
I never got diagnosed as a schizotype in school but they tried really hard to accommodate me anyway. Today I would be misdiagnosed as ADHD or autistic. Today there is a two-class system in school between people who have a diagnosis who can get little accommodations like another two minutes to use the bathroom and people without a diagnosis who have to ride on the back of the bus.
You seem to be describing yourself as a "schizotype" but isn't that also a similar label to the ones you are criticizing the proliferation of?
If you feel that the other labels are unhelpful why do you feel it is helpful to label yourself as a "schizotype"?
My wife and I live above a bar frequented by tourists and the bartender is a friend of mine. When it isn’t busy, I’ll usually go down there order a soda and just talk to whoever shows up. The easy opener once the conversation starts is “what keeps you busy?” and keep the conversation going. This lets them talk about work, family, hobbies or whatever else they like to talk about
I read a book that said you should try something new to you at least every quarter if not more often. It gives you something to talk about.
While my wife and I are empty nesters and at point where we travel a lot and we do the digital nomad thing in spurts so we can always talk about travel or more often ask “what’s the most interesting place you’ve been to”/“What’s interesting about where you live” etc, it doesn’t have to be travel.
And just to be clear, it’s always either guys I am striking a conversation with or couples. There is no way for a 50 year old married guy to talk to a woman alone at the bar without coming off like a creep.
On the other hand, I try not to talk about politics or religion. What’s the point?
> I read a book that said you should try something new to you at least every quarter if not more often. It gives you something to talk about.
Any chance you remember the name?
https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships...
not OP and not sure of the book but if you're interested in material like this, check out Derek Sivers' work - usually revolves around stepping outside your comfort zone, exploring new ideas, etc.
https://sive.rs/n
> There is no way for a 50 year old married guy to talk to a woman alone at the bar without coming off like a creep.
Not true. You have to engage in a way that signals very clearly you don't really give much of a shit about talking to her, and your social status is higher than hers.
For example, if you're having a conversation with your bartender friend and you need a female perspective to settle a disagreement, and you ask for it without fully "engaging" with her, that'll work fine. Once she's been pulled in you will have to keep hooking her into the conversation with interesting tidbits, but eventually most women will just keep talking.
I am not big into going to bars but I'd say post-50 I have no problem talking to women and not being a "creep". Somehow I am really avuncular and rarely perceived a sexual threat. When I was younger I had more of that problem and was intimidated by beautiful people, a month ago I shook hands with a former Miss America.
Attraction does sometimes come up with women who are 10 years younger than me but otherwise I think it is a non-issue.
I am not either for the most part by myself. It just so happens that I live in a vacation area where my wife and I are the only permanent residence of a condotel (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/condotel.asp). I go down to hang out with the bartender. It’s mostly guys and couples getting away from their kids after spending all day at the parks (Orlando).
The bar is literally downstairs from where we live.
My wife and I also usually sit at the bar when we go somewhere and just talk to people whenever we go out.
> signals very clearly you don't really give much of a shit about talking to her, and your social status is higher than hers
he said "_without_ coming off like a creep"
Maybe if you do it very very wrong. I suppose you're imagining some swaggering jerk putting her down and acting self important, that's your mistake.
No, it's very much yours and the way you phrased it. Perhaps you didn't mean it this way, but you sound like some kind of "pickup artist" type giving advice on "negging" women.
Since I didn't mention how to do anything, seems like he was projecting his biases on my words. Pretty sad that "be someone worth talking to" and "don't project neediness" are somehow owned by the manosphere now. No wonder people are marrying chatbots.
Not to mention that humans seem to have a fixed (yet variable, compared to the entire population) amount of energy they're each able to spend. Sometimes very interesting people gatekeep their authenticity to protect and preserve what they have to offer others, especially to strangers, coworkers, clients, even family.
I think the general message of bravery in authenticity is very important on a personal level, and incredibly subjective with regards to anybody external.
When a vampire knocks on your door, do you always invite them in?
> I think there are finely-tuned social algorithms that we innately follow.
That would explain why I can’t do small talk, those are not innate to everyone.
Wasn’t to me either. It’s a learned skill that you can study and practice. I am only child. About a decade ago I saw one of two ways to make above my 2nd tier city enterprise dev wages - about $150K - either “grind leetCode and work for a FAANG” (r/cscareerquestions) or go into customer facing consulting where I would be required to do the business dinners and small talk.
I chose the latter. At 45+, there is no age discrimination in consulting - I still do hands on keyboard coding + cloud. Even before I got into consulting (working full time for consulting companies), I had roles inside companies where I interviewed with new to company directors/CTOs who were looking for someone who could get things done not reversing a b tree on the whiteboard. I had to learn how to talk. I haven’t had a coding interview since 2012 and I’ve worked for 6 companies since then
Do you think that the people who dance like no one is watching or who love like they’ve never been hurt are on average happier or unhappier than the average person? Are they happier or unhappier than the people who dance like everyone is watching or who love like they’ve always been hurt?
I feel like these are risks with a large penalty if it goes wrong but on average probably higher, no? Dancing more so than love
What is the large penalty for these risks?
I meant in comparison to the reward. Loving recklessly isn't much more deeply and could make you hurt significantly. Dancing confidently isn't rewarded compared to bimeinf embarrassed for dancing badlt.
It seems like you have really strongly held beliefs about these things that are based more in how you’d like the world to be than how it really is.
Even if you think there is a small benefit to dancing confidently compared to dancing insecurely, what specifically is the big relative risk of dancing confidently. What will go wrong?
When you put it that way; I guess after some reflection, I realize my algorithm is optimized for efficiency and I immediately try to hone in on strong agreements or disagreements in taste/politics/etc. so that I don't waste my time getting to know a shitty person, or miss out on a potential best friend.
These means engaging in a level of provocative speech/behavior that sometimes makes people uncomfortable (not my problem of course; I have little interest in euphemism or politeness, my energy goes toward transparency and kindness)
Progressive self-disclosure can have its uses but if I can't break the ice in two minutes with a stranger, it's not a good sign for our compatibility.
Now, I did grow up in an environment where I was never really allowed to exist. I am an atheist raised by an hyper-abusive, hyper-religious, ex-boxer Catholic deacon in an extremely conservative part of the United States. The police were at my house every couple of weeks. So this may have influenced my comfort with radical transparency; I had to learn at a young age to literally fight constantly for my right to think my own way, and I'm ready to do that at any time.
But I have definitely been in some neighborhoods where the most interaction you should have with a stranger is a nod of the head, anything more is asking for trouble no matter who you are. I can vouch that there are harsh urban environments which prevent, by design, even progressive disclosure from being a safe option. This effectively kills any chance at real unity in the community, and drives up crime statistics, further justifying the continued disunification tactics.
It would be cool to catalog, categorize and analyze these kinds of social algorithms. It seems like an interesting cross-disciplinary field, involving psychology, sociology, game theory, cultural anthropology, etc.
If I meet somebody that immediately skips the progressive self-disclosure small talk and jumps right in to a big discussion… I’m going to withdraw. Even if I agree with everything you’re saying, it comes off as aggressive. like youre trying to speed run forming a relationship by skipping the small talk
No, I'm just not going to progressively disclose my nature. I'm just going to be myself, regardless of how others in my environment might react.
I can field the small talk, several of my friends have commented on my ability to break the ice quickly with strangers. But after a minute or two, the conversation is either over or we're moving onto more interesting discussions.
Come to one of the conservative towns I grew up in and you'll understand the need for such a mentality. Progressive disclosure can lead to things like accepting racism, sexism and other injustices.
It's a good mentality to carry forth into other environments as well, because at the end of the day, the less masks I have to carry, the better.
You don't sound like someone I'd like to speak with even if we might agree on things. You writing has a very aggressive tone to it for no reason.
I'll be honest if someone tries to get into politics and other such things very soon after I start speaking to them it really puts me off. I might not disengage right away, but I'll probably never choose to speak with them again.
I think both of you are projecting an aggression tone onto my words. Poe's law, maybe.
It shouldn't offend you that I don't personally enjoy continued small talk and prefer to form deeper connections at the risk of losing superficial connections, by not engaging in drawn-out progressive disclosure.
You're making assumptions about our compatibility without knowing much about me at all. But, this was my point: Now I know that we don't need to continue the discussion and we can both spend our energy elsewhere.
As a neutral 3rd-party who wants to help you speed-run your self-growth (because I like your energy):
- Yeah you come across as aggro. That's okay, sounds like you went through some stuff.
- Sounds like you've identified you grew up in a weird situation. That sounds bad, sucks you had to go through that.
- But it also sounds like there's a piece of you that's trying to overcorrect. I understand, it's common among us nerds -- you grow up in a situation where you aren't as appreciated as you should be and you try to turn off that feeling entirely somehow. Unfortunately these types of attempts to hack our own feelings are usually worse than the problems in the first place. Usually the best course is to slowly try to remind yourself (over years) "That was a bad situation, it was bad luck, it meant nothing, and it's not the norm. I don't need to fundamentally change to not have that happen again."
I do appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I still believe that you and the two other commenters here are misreading or misinterpreting me.
That's a lesson for me to choose my words more carefully, but only to avoid misinterpretation in an online forum; everything I said, I 100% stand by, and it's honestly unsurprising that a comment about being provocative and to-the-point, not always progressively self-disclosing, has made some people uncomfortable.
> Unfortunately these types of attempts to hack our own feelings are usually worse than the problems in the first place
I want to stress that I mean this in the most constructive, positive way possible, but it feels like your comment projects a bit onto me in an attempt to find common ground. I welcome the attempt but I do want to point out that I don't try to "hack my feelings", and I don't organize my life and behaviors under some fear that my childhood is somehow going to happen again. I am very in touch with my feelings, I value emotional intelligence and reflection. I don't pathologically worry about others appreciating me.
I brought up my past to show how such a perspective might form, but the perspective is not some kind of defense mechanism. It is a playbook for how to live my life in a way that aligns with my ideals and goals, and it's one of the only good things to have come out of my childhood. I cherish my perspective and how it's allowed me to help both myself and others.
Well the reason I said it sounds like you were trying to "hack" feelings was that you mentioned you came up with your own social "algorithm" for testing people you meet that could make them uncomfortable. It's been my observation that most attempts to optimize conversation backfire.
But I'm not really trying to convince you, I don't have a horse in this race. If you want maybe ask an AI and see what it thinks, they are great neutral tool for being a judge on human tone or being a social mirror.
> you mentioned you came up with your own social "algorithm" for testing people you meet that could make them uncomfortable
I didn't say that, reread my comments. I have no interest in "testing" people like some sort of sociopath. You mentioned the algorithm of progressive disclosure. I said that I specifically do not do this whenever I can help it, and mused about why that is, and why it might be so for others raised in certain communities.
I said I quickly like to discover who other people are and communicate who I am, to skip all of the progressive disclosure crap and either come to terms with the fact that we aren't compatible, or to find a thread to start pulling and weaving into a relationship.
> It's been my observation that most attempts to optimize conversation backfire.
Progressive disclosure is an optimization. It's just optimizing for different things. I don't walk into a random conversation with someone planning to control how the conversation unfolds, or "optimize" it. But anyone with experience in public speaking, or leadership, sales, political organization or other environments which necessitate the ability to navigate and calibrate conversations, will learn a few tricks for keeping things on track or avoiding dull moments.
Conversational speaking is a skill, and getting better at it for the sake of improving your ability to communicate is not "hacking" or "optimizing" the conversation. I think you have decided on a bunch of behaviors in your head that I simply do not engage in.
> If you want maybe ask an AI and see what it thinks, they are great neutral tool for being a judge on human tone or being a social mirror
I have dumped my entire HN history into chatbots to study my conversational approach and learn from it. Self-betterment is always a work in progress, but I simply do not engage in the behaviors you've decided I engage in without even meeting me.
This thread has turned into a series of misunderstandings from multiple users, none of whom ever stopped to seek to understand or ask for more detail before making assumptions. Instead, I had to field several bad assumptions from people who were ironically claiming that someone whom they've never met, but simulated in their head based on a single comment, is aggressive or annoying to be around. It's ironic because, from my perspective, all of these assumptions represent missed chances for us to seek understanding from each other, and shift this from a conversation to a debate, which to me is aggressive.
I simply shared my perspective. This thread did not need to evolve this way. If I were the first user replying to my post, I would ask more questions to clarify my understanding before just deciding for myself that someone is annoying to be around because they said they like to be themselves from the jump when meeting others.
How about we go the other direction: how to stop being bored by other people.
Most people are fascinating if you engage with them in good will and solidarity. That doesn't mean you have to like them or support every opinion they hold or behavior they exhibit, but just take them as they are and figure out what they are interested in.
I have been surprised to find that many "boring" people are, instead, shy and are much more interesting than the extroverts that are usually labeled as such.
Actually this is the best advice I've heard to not being boring yourself. If you are earnestly interested in the other person's interests, wants, dreams, what have you, they will find you interesting.
This post is slightly different about not being bland/non-weird, which is another thing--be yourself out loud.
I know I do edit what I say to new people that I meet, because they probably actually aren't interested in my several deep but narrow interests--I can tell by my Youtube feed. I am unapologetically weird and totally fine with progressive disclosure. I suppose if we have common interests but they act similarly it would be a missed opportunity--I should give more signals, the equivalent of wearing my fave band T-shirt, like mentioning things regularly in casual small talk.
If anything I've edited my own life down for simplicity and focus: family, friends, some aspects of work, and a handful of lasting interests. If you don't care what other people think, a lot of things just become unimportant.
I think speaks more to a certain personality type than a set of general social protocols. This person feels like their personality was worn down to something boring by trying to fit into social systems that arguably were not designed for them. What I see here is two systems that operate at different levels of abstraction. The author's is focused on special interests, systemic critique ("be polarizing" from the post), and meta-conversation. The other is focused on lived experience, emotional shorthand, shared cultural assumptions, and relational smoothing. Neither is right or wrong, but there can be a cultural clash and misunderstandings if the two are not both recognized as valid and rich in their own way.
Not everyone is going to value weirdness. That doesn't necessarily make them boring. It doesn't mean they are incapable of revealing interesting truths about themselves - but the author may be unable to detect those for what they are due to his own cultural bias.
Being shy, small, and sensitive as a kid, I feel like I could have been particularly susceptible to censoring myself. I felt shame very easily, but a large portion of this came from a handful of loud close minded people around me and bullies. As an adult I know the rules better and can better identify when someone reacts unduly to some quality of mine. That, and I keep better company now—other adults.
I would not go so far as the article suggests, as to be polarizing; I take it as them just going a little hyperbolic in their point. Just I want to be a bit more accepting of myself as well as others. And some people will still dislike me no matter how much I try to hide my personality. Those people are not worth it
See also: ask vs guess culture https://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-bet...
> They're saying what they actually think and wearing what they actually like, pursuing hobbies that genuinely fascinate them, regardless of whether those hobbies are cool.
Joke's on you, OP - even being like that you'll still find people who think you're boring because it's subjective.
Truth is, once youth passes, over time people become increasingly disinterested in others. This effect was exacerbated by the recent pandemic.
You might be a genuinely fascinating and authentic person, yet all that is going to fall flat in a crowd whose reaction to going outside is "ugh, people".
What really works is showing genuine interest in others. It's such a rare thing in this day and age that many are surprised when they experience it.
> Truth is, once youth passes, over time people become increasingly disinterested in others.
I find almost exactly the opposite is true. As you age your perceived value lessens, while you find the nuances of human behaviour ever more fascinating. Meanwhile many of the current cohort of twenty somethings seem disinterested in everything, including one another.
I would extend that to thirty somethings, so my generation as well.
Over time most of the people this age in my extended social circle kind of... faded. I don't know what caused this but I find myself increasingly socialising with younger people because they still haven't retreated to the comfort of their "me time" activities.
In the US, I think that not doing the boring thing, which is spending time during 20s working or studying for a handful of career paths, climbing up the career ladder, saving up for downpayment for land in the richer areas of a handful of expensive cities, etc comes with huge costs.
The cost is that when you are 40 and you either have stable finances such that you can provide your kids with an acceptable amount of healthcare and education and housing stability, and you will be able to retire, or you get to 40 and you have to start sacrificing the goal of raising kids within the aforementioned parameters.
Maybe that is how it always was, it just wasn't a "known" thing so people didn't incorporate it into the decision making when they were 20.
"... over time people become increasingly disinterested in others."
The average person perhaps. I find as I get older that people become more fascinating to me. Maybe I've just gotten better at listening and identifying interesting things about them.
Would agree wholeheartedly with this. Once you drill down into a person, you will eventually find an aspect of them that approaches life in a way you do not, and in a way which increases your appreciation for the depth of human experience if you listen closely enough. The signals the author are clued in on here are superficial to me. Idiosyncratic consumptions, a controversial political take or two? Sure, those can tickle one's curiosity, but they are only entrances to possible points of uniqueness and can be easily faked. Obviously you can't know everyone, nor should you want to, so these are just proxies the author uses to find people they want to spend their limited time with rather than in my opinion actual "not-boring" people.
“Ugh people” - see I found my people! You don’t happen to be in Philly?
No, but you're already the second person to ask this, meaning I now have to see this place.
I'm not American, but I was meaning to visit Altoona, PA as, according to one person living there, it was "the most average town in US". Unfortunately Luigi Mangione put it on the map, so it most certainly lost that title by now.
> over time people become increasingly disinterested in others
I think it is smartphones.
I was in a group conversation last week where everyone was discussing what sophisticated new TV shows they were watching. When it got to me I said, “My family is really into Sabrina the Teenage Witch right now. It holds up really well and Salem the cat is absolutely hysterical.” The look I got was hilarious.
> This happens gradually. In middle school, you learn that certain enthusiasms are embarrassing. In high school, you learn which opinions are acceptable in your social group. In college, you refine your persona further. By the time you're an adult, you've become so skilled at reading rooms and ajusting accordingly that you don't even notice you're doing it. You've automated your own inauthenticity.
What the author is describing is called masking/social camouflage. It is usually a symptom of something deeper - be it low self-esteem, infant trauma, etc. I am not a mental health expert, but I do think that getting to the original cause and treating that will tend to give better results than concentrating on the symptoms.
the ability to read the room and know how to act in different social situations is a symptom of low self esteem?
Low self esteem and conformism, especially strong in the US where the mainstream culture is based on Northern European social norms and puritanism. The tolerance for excentricity is very low.
It can be a symptom of that... but it's also what basically every single person does to some degree. Not doing it at all is also a sign of mental issues. Just different varieties.
The "polarizing" bit has some truth to it but unfortunately this year I think people will see it in this frame
https://jacobin.com/2026/02/hyperpolitics-jager-institutions...
Lately I've been "going out-as-a-fox" to get smiles from people when I do street photography. As-a-fox I never push on a string but somehow I wind up being approached by several people a day who I had out "tokens" to that link to my photography. It started out when I realized I could get away with wearing an animal ear hood in public rather than an animal ear headband and at first I looked at it from the frame of character acting -- I started doing photography as-a-fox because I do photography all the time, but when I was forced to explain what I was doing I developed "foxographer" as a cover story but getting the role made it all real, even when I do a shabby job of my adjustments I am finding that people in my environment believe in my character and I'm developing a number of self-working routines that make the whole thing easy.
I've been interested in developing charisma and related subjects for a long time and this character breaks the assumptions I've made all this time (this is the first one who doesn't try to stand taller than I do!) but it puts a zero on the right side of all my KPIs.
We were never bored because we were never being boring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnvFOaBoieE
Directed by fashion photographer Bruce Weber. A tremendous artifact of the late 1980s transitioning to the Nineties.
Official HD version is available too:
https://youtu.be/NVC-jusXGno
I've been talking to my therapist about something similar - masking, as someone else in the comments mentioned.
And one thing that I've been thinking about as a result is that I don't owe anyone my authentic self.
Asking me to reveal more things about myself is asking a hell of a lot, actually. So maybe I'm boring on purpose, because I don't want to get into an argument with a random parent on the playground, or a random stranger on a bus, or a random receptionist at the doctor.
I'll be interesting to the people I'm interested in, and boring to everyone else.
> I don't owe anyone my authentic self.
that makes sense, since to be authentic, you need to be vulnerable.
Maybe what the article means is not so much to bring up something deeply personal, but to show a unique part of yourself.
I remember a guy came to work on my heating system and while he was wrapping up, somehow he told me he liked slot machines. That led to a 15 minute discussion about them. Next he told me his wife let him keep 6 of them in his living room and he showed me pictures.
I think that was not revealing too much personal stuff, but an enthusiasm for something that added life to the conversation.
So maybe carefully think of things you can reveal that make you who you are, without pulling back the curtain completely.
Marginally related, I feel the same way about honesty, especially in a work context.
I’ve always prided myself in being an honest but considerate person.
A recent experience with a colleague who weaponised my honesty in an attempt to manipulate me has left a foul taste in my mouth. Luckily their contract ended and the problem resolved itself.
But I remember distinctly feeling that I will be professional and polite but I do not automatically owe anyone my honesty.
Boredom is actually a good thing to experience. Modern life seeks to devour every morsel of our attention.
Are you able to sit motionless looking at a tree for 3 minutes? Can you read a book for an hour? Can you focus intensely on a work project for 2-3 hours?
If not, you may need more boredom to enhance your connection with "mundane" things. Trying to be interesting/authentic/not boring may lead to cheap thrills and provocative experiences moment by moment, which de-train your focus and attention for those very hard tasks you need/want to do in life.
Boring, not bored.
The author seems more about authenticity than boring-ness. And using the label boring vs bored, it comes to a similar outcome.
If I say, that guy is boring, he's inauthentic/poser/wanna-be, in my opinion I've failed that interaction. I am not engaging with him, I label him too mundane.
Yet, every person has genuine authenticity and need for connection, if you're attentive and patient enough to see it.
If you go around being frank and blasting your true opinions and true passions at everyone, you may miss a chance to learn more about them themselves, and move past the "boring" label you're putting, to see the real, struggling, suffering, but inherently interesting person underneath.
"he's inauthentic/poser/wanna-be"
There is an issue with these folks though. They quite often are hyper-gatekeepers because of their own insecurity about not being "legit." They tend to be over-critical and thus quite tedious (& socially precarious) to talk to.
I've become quite comfortable with being boring. Fact is, it's a great life.
When I see "interesting" people doing "interesting" things they look fake, exhausting, or both.
In general "being a person who", that is projecting identity, is boring. This is why you need polarization as a crutch. Being someone who's into competitive puzzle-solving, pop punk, or birdwatching is exactly the focus group tested "say something about yourself" no one really needs.
Now, having gone to a pop punk concert and sharing some observation about the crowd or surprising opening act might be interesting. Noticing that a lot of induction puzzles are based on simple features like even/odd is less interesting but still might interest someone.
Reading the room itself is generally considered interesting. If you go for a minute or two about the induction puzzles and your colleague/date/whoever shows no interest, you can turn mid-sentence and imputing "so... no interest in induction puzzles, the last one you saw was in third grade and even then it wasn't your first choice." It's just good conversation.
It's like in writing. Show, don't tell.
I see an analogy to the notoriously difficult-to-implement recommendation of "just be yourself. Be natural. Relax."
We all (except children generally) wear masks. Sometimes the same mask we've been wearing since teenager-hood. It's unclear what's left under the mask.
I guess more masks but some masks fit better I suppose.
Funnily, "interesting" is one of those characteristics that follow the "there's nothing less X than someone who wants to seem X". Along with "cool", "manly" and probably dozen others.
This isn't the first time that I've seen interestingness treated like a virtue.
Honestly, I like it and agree that it makes a very good virtue.
But at the same time, I don't think we have a good enough collective understanding of what it means for something to be interesting to use it this way. Complexity isn't noise or quantity. It's also not exactly measured by our emotional or cognitive response to something. It's kind of measured that way, but in a noisy and unreliable way if that makes sense?
Anyways, go read Godel Escher Bach. Much more interesting than anything I've got to say on the matter.
Also, chill out. It's not a competition.
"Be yourself" and "be polarizing" are the author's two suggestions to... avoid boring her, specifically? Or to avoid boring everybody? I'm not sure she quite understands what makes people tick.
Yeah. The article reads like a long-winded personal opinion. Advice for the author.
I don't agree that personal styles of weirdness are a desirable social style. I agree that bland dinner-party persona is oversubscribed. I agree that quitting hobbies from social pressure is needless self-erasure. My take is that we need a both-and answer.
To consider an extreme obvious counter-example, think of a cross-cultural situation where social conventions vary widely and adjustment is needed, and then consider that we all hail from our own microcultures with their own customs and expectations.
The real balance to achieve is being who we are in a way that doesn't alienate others. Fully accepting both self and other.
Love is love. Sadly acceptance is hard.
Being "weird" is fine, but a lot of people dont know how to be normal about being "weird". When it feels like theres walls of perpetual irony to one's personality or embarrassment of one's own interests it rarely bodes well.
Doesn't mean you have to reveal every single interest, just have a little confidence towards the ones that do, whether or not you misread and how they land.
Sure, be polarizing, have opinions. But be careful not to be judgemental. Be open minded, don't judge too soon when other opinions don't match yours, don't label people. Let's stay nice.
In that sense I don't really get the "some people wont like you". I think it pretty poor form if you don't like people that have a different opinion. How can you not be interested in learning a different view on things?
I've been having this conversation with some of the children in my life. They frequently refer to a subset of their peers as "boring" and I bristle ever time I hear it. I try to suggest that other people are not here for our entertainment and therefore deciding that they are boring is to misunderstand the relationship. As you might imagine, the suggestion is not sinking in.
Oh people are totally here for our entertainment. You should teach them the thralls of people watching.
I'm pretty sure if I followed this advice I'd get fired, arrested, or both. Nice aspiration but not practical for everyone
Not the first time I've read descriptions of this kind of behavior (let's call it social conformity) presented as perfectly normal, and I read comments (here and elsewhere) that largely confirm this is normal.
It's pathological dysfunction, however common it may be.
I suppose you can't see it when you're in it.
I hide my hobbies because I think they're pretty cringe (mushroom picking, making kombucha, among others) but when people find out they're always interested and want to learn more, or at least they act that way.
How is any of those hobby even remotely cringe? I honestly don't understand.
Tiktokking for attention as a job is cringe but making stuff like we did for eons cannot possibly be.
Well both of them require near-autistic levels of attention to detail and knowledge. I used to be a scientist and so having a lab book to track different kombucha experiments satisfies that need, and detailed knowledge is obviously required for mushroom picking (and subsequent eating)
what's wrong with being boring?
Nothing at all if you ask me. I consider myself boring and lazy, and I’m content with that. Not unrelated (but not necessarily causally connected), I also consider myself extraordinarily lucky that I find myself in a time where my basic needs are met almost by default. I guess it’s easy to be content when you don’t put high demands on yourself.
There's something to be said for the social losses associated with it. People who are truly boring don't tend to get noticed for social events, dates, promotions, etc. It can be hard for someone to realize they're not all that important or significant to anyone - being a mild addition that doesn't hurt any given event or situation, but no one is bothered by their absence either.
I would answer that question, except my thoughts put me to sleep.
More seriously though: the article is one person's opinion on what makes a boring person and their pet solution. It may work for them, but it won't work for everyone.
It really boils down to the question: what is a boring person? The answer to that will be a subjective one. I would argue a boring people include those who are passionate about sports. A significant proportion of humanity will violently disagree with me. The minute that I open my mouth about my interests, they will migrate to someone who is talking about the latest game. It won't matter whether the interest comes naturally or is cultivated.
I mostly disagree with the author's point about reading audiences. About the only point I do agree with is that we shouldn't let the audience define who we are. I will also concede that having a shallow knowledge of a topic, simply to fit in, will make for boring conversation. But a shallow knowledge to fit in isn't how I describe defining one's interests to fit in.
"Boring" is the opposite of "interesting" (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/boring). "Interesting" is new, attractive, good. "Boring" is old news, unattractive, bad. Not exactly "bad", as in "I actively dislike this", of course.
Thus, being boring is not good.
Boring in this case means something like "unmemorable" or "indiscernible". The great big dice roll that happens for everyone at the start of the big game has way too many variables to land on the same values twice, so being boring is a choice to hide the diff between you and the person you're talking to. ("Audit what you've hidden" is a neat way to phrase that.)
If you rolled all 1s for charisma, that would be unboring, it'd be memorable!
Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but there is a bit of science on this. Here is a reddit thread discussing it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/psychoanalysis/comments/1r6h9h5/any...
I specifically liked the paper:
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xge-xge0001799.pd... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/well/mind/cool-people-tra...
I think cool people make more money, have more opportunities, probably have more fun. But don't get me wrong, the epicurean hedonist in me sometimes wants to just chill and eat bread and water.
Love the article. My fav quote:
> The things on your cringe list are probably the most interesting things about you.
No one in the whole world is boring, because “boring” is not trait, it’s a relationship. For any given person there is some set of people who are interested in him, and many others who are not.
Do you want to be loved? Then offer love and be lovable. Do you want to be valued? Then value things and be a valuable.
Someone once told me that boredom is often repressed anger. Got me thinking.
>"Somewhere along the way, too many of us learned to sand off our weird edges, to preemptively remove anything that might make someone uncomfortable or make us seem difficult to be around."
As an adult you learn that showing your true self can be dangerous in an environment where you don't know who can be trusted. We don't get the allowance of children to be weird or awkward. Others are gunning for us, and looking for any possible weakness. One wrong impression can drastically affect your life. So you curate yourself in a way that keeps your personality for those who can be trusted to accept and understand it, and others may see that as boring until they've been let in. It's just maturity; you have to earn the right to have me let my guard down around you.
Dangerous how?
You can simply...not care.
Unless it's a context with a minimum required codex such as work.
But in your relationships, if you want to have meaningful ones, you need to find those where you can be yourself.
It's better to have 1 or 2 true friends (hell, most people don't have that many, you're lucky if you do) than knowing and being popular among dozens for a filtered/fake persona you built so others like you.
Doesn't almost every situation have a minimum required codex? Sure, you should be yourself with your friends. But if they are already your friends, then you are likely already interesting enough. I thought the article was more about how to be interesting to people who don't already know you.
Well said, this was similar to what I was thinking while reading this. Acting in a completely unfiltered way can get you into fights, arrested, or worse.
People who are normally perceived as non-boring (like talkative, outgoing, friendly-by-default people) are usually insufferable for me.
People who are initially perceived as boring (like quiet, introspective, focused people) are more fascinating if you can get through to them. Unfortunately, I have no such skills...
The person who wrote this seems very confused
Very true! The most interesting people do not force themselves to be interesting. The key takeaway here is not to "edit yourself" or copy others constantly. Most people seem to play follow the leader.
I can assure you that my bird watching hobby is not interesting to anyone.
TLDR, go to therapy; you are a people pleaser.
Sadly, it’s a societal issue as we are told to be X or Y. Boys wear blue and hang with the fellas. Girls wear pink and have tea with the ladies. Go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, die.
No one is ever like climb Everest, surf in Indonesia, backpack Europe, get lost in the wilderness.
I am pretty sure backpacking, surfing, scuba, free diving, rock climbing etc are what everyone does to try to be interesting.
Sick personal site
I don’t edit who I am. I simply stopped sharing any parts of myself with people I don’t know, preferring to keep things to business most of the time. I’m insanely weird, by most people’s definition of weird, and I’m okay with that. I just don’t need reactions while I’m conducting my daily business. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.
I have to say that nothing (besides an AI generated header image) screams "I am going to say something boring and unremarkable" more than sticking an unsplash stock image completely unrelated to the article content on the top of the page. Want your website to be memorable? Be like a certain other website that was submitted to HN recently and put a video of your homebrew surgery on the front page, I will remember that one for a long time for sure.
I jest, but honestly, this article isn't that interesting. It seems to be a rehash of the entire individualizing 21c ethos of "be authentic! Be yourself!" (Just don't question why do all those authentic people all end up listening to punk music, drink IPAs, ride fixies and take photos on film cameras.) I find this view disturbingly narcissistic and, frankly, insulting to those of us who changed ourselves in the presence of others because we want to and like it. I would not be listening to country which I previously considered boring if I never dated a person who does. Am I a lesser person now because I have caved to social pressure or whatever?
It is also rather amusing that the examples of "polarizing" figures are a cookbook author and one of the less remembered figures or new atheism. Try telling others you like Richard Dawkins (whose polarizing views are precisely why he is still a prominent public figure.) Try telling others you enjoy Kid Rock (who I consider, at best, a boring musician propped up purely by ideological reasons.)
Maybe the people the author is talking to don't want a blog post written about them. I appear the most boring to people I want to leave me alone.
Fear of being called pretentious has caused people to self-defensively amputate their organs of taste and discernment. They select from among the available consumer choices to build their identity instead.
What the author mistakes as interestingness is the courage to develop and render judgement, and a resolve to live a life built from the consequences of doing so.
Early in my career, I'd go to work and ask people 'do anything last night?' and we would both basically say: Not really.
I decided I did not want to be boring. I decided to spend an hour at least on something I found interesting or economically useful. I started a company, would learn programming(now I'm a pro programmer), I learned a few different arts (great for relating to a different set of people when you explain you draw, paint, sew, and crochet)...
Whatever the case, I think there was economic benefits to 'not being boring'. However you really need to push yourself, its way easier to veg out on the couch to fiction. I think caffeine and weed helped me initially, now its just my normal lifestyle.
>The most memorable people are polarizing. Some people love them; some people find them insufferable.
Trust me it’s not because it’s a fun way to live
1. There is a distinction between appearing boring and being boring. The object isn't to seem interesting. The object is to be what you ought. Defining yourself according to the expectations of others instead of what is objectively good is what produces boring people.
2. People often vacillate between conformity and contrarianism. This is what juvenile edgelords on the internet are about. Both conformists and contrarians are trapped inside the same silly paradigm. Both define themselves and behave not in terms of the truth, to which all intelligence and behavior must conform, but in relation to others and what they think. A conformist assumes a persona that agrees with others in their social setting, regardless of whether it is objectively good. A contrarian takes what agrees with others and negates it, regardless of whether it is objectively good. Both are mindless, reflexive, and boring. Both lack substance. Both are empty theater rooted in people-pleasing and approval-seeking. Both are dishonest, cowardly acts of deception.
3. Reading a room isn't about people-pleasing. It's about empathy so that you can response in the way that is good and needed. If you enter a funeral parlor, you don't crack jokes or paint your toenails. You recognize there are people grieving there, that a dead person is being honored. In other words, you also consider, within reason, the good of others in the room, and you respond to the facts as they are, even when pursuing your own goals.
4. One flaw in the "I gotta be ME!" schtick is that it idolizes the self. It makes a god of the self. It puts unmoored desires above the truth instead of rooting desires in the truth. There are plenty of desires that ought not to be indulged, at least not indulged in certain ways or at certain times. The point is that your behavior ought to occur within the scope of reason. What is evil and wrong is always outside of reason.
5. Life can be messy. We can be messy. When that is the case, the goal isn't to keep messing it up or to run with our own mess toward the abyss. These messes, our mess, is a kind of cross we bear for the good. They're things we struggle with, not surrender to. If someone has a tendency to overeat, it might be difficult to resist, but it is good for him to practice fasting. If someone has a habit to reach for porn, it may be painful to resist, but it is good for him to resist and to avoid so that he can overcome the habit instead of wallowing in slavish submission to that awful vice. If someone has a tendency toward irascibility and wrath, it may feel satisfying to indulge it in the moment, but practicing meekness is the true reward. If someone has trouble with envy, tearing someone down may scratch that itch, but responding with selfless good will is freedom. Triumph over vice makes us interesting. Succumbing to its easiness makes us boring.