What not to do when you're bored
You are going to get bored sometimes. You can learn to
successfully distract yourself from the boredom as soon as you identify
its presence, but there will always be times when you find you are just
too
lazy to find something entertaining to do, and nothing and no one
at hand inspires or appeals to you. It's human nature.
Maybe you can change your diet to do something about it. Maybe
there are some strange people out there who just never get bored (and
maybe there is an
invisible pink unicorn). But
you, Mr. or Ms.
Average Person,
are going to get bored sometimes. Which means that there is a
certain piece of wisdom about
social dynamics that you should learn
now if you haven't already:
Never, under any circumstances, talk about being bored.
This means that the following expressions are verboten, off-limits,
interdicted, and
right out
when speaking aloud somewhere anyone else can hear you or recording in
any written medium which might ever be chanced upon by another human,
unless you are directly quoting another person or character:
- "I am bored."
- "I'm bored as shit/fuck."
- "SO BOOOOORRREEEDDD!"
- "BLLLAAAHHHHH!"
- "My dear chap, it seems I am suddenly overcome by a quite
pernicious case of ennui!"
The reason for this interdict is quite simple. Indeed,
Harvey
Danger has already put it more plainly than anyone else could ever
hope to do again:
"If you're bored, then you're boring."
If you talk about being bored, then, first and foremost, you are doing
nothing to stimulate interesting
conversation. Conversation
proceeds naturally because the participants are
interested and boredom is a state
of
not being interested.
It is, by its very nature,
the very
antithesis of interesting conversation. If you walk into a
silent room and announce that you are bored, then you are likely to get
the following responses:
- "Go read a book or something?" from someone who is otherwise
occupied.
- "Join the club!" from someone who is equally bored.
...or no response at all. In any case, without a change of subject, everyone in the room will
immediately return to whatever they were (or weren't) doing. No
one is likely to invite you to sit next to them and explain to them all
about the origin of this bored feeling you display. "Oh, that
sounds extremely uninteresting! Let's talk about it!" they might
never ever
ever say.
No, your only hope for turning this into an interesting conversation
with someone is to immediately change the subject: "Anyone want to go
see a movie or get a
beer?" But you may notice that this
sentence forms an interesting conversation topic in its own right, so
what was the point in admitting that you were bored in the first
place? It's not a very good opening for a conversation about
something completely different. At best, it will serve to show
that you have a whiny, complaining side. And no one likes a
whiner.
On the other hand, if you announce in the middle of an ongoing
conversation (even if you are just joining it) you are committing an
even worse social
faux pas. Announcing to friends who are
enjoying themselves that you are bored looks like an accusation: "Hey
guys, here you are all having fun, and I'm over here
bored. Why aren't you trying
harder to entertain me?" I don't think I even need to say how
selfish that sounds. Yes, even if you are idly commenting on a
mental state without consideration for the topic at hand, you are being
a jackass. At worst, you look like a douchebag that expects your
friends to keep you entertained. At best, you look like a selfish
jerk who refuses to pay attention to what's going on around you and try
to engage and integrate yourself into the social setting.
And since I know you don't want to be a jerk, I'm going to assume that
you, Mr. or Ms.
Normal don't go around declaring your boredom
indiscriminately. But keep a look-out for those who do: a
surprising number of people do this seemingly without realizing how
alternately insulting,
selfish, or pointless it is. (I just
grepped my
IRC logs for a particular
channel and found 185
occurrences of the word "bored" in the last year or so, most of which
appear to be the above described declarations of boredom.) And
when you find someone like that, do me a favor and give it to them
straight, okay?