Some years ago, I managed to get an invitation to a very exclusive party. One of the guests was Prince Philip and some way into the evening he drifted over in my direction. He used the classic royal conversation opener: “Hello, what’s been keeping you busy?” “I work in marketing,” I replied. “Oh dear,” he said. He turned away and went to find someone more interesting. I was officially boring.
That’s fine, because I have made it my lifetime’s work to seek out the boring at parties. Those who drone on, those who tell the same story over and over, and those with that odd nasal monotone that makes most people desperate to escape their company. I am not alone in this. C.S. Lewis did the same thing.
In Oxford on June 8, 1941, at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Lewis preached one of his rare sermons. He urged his listeners to seek out the people others felt were dull. He argued that the bore in this life would be transformed into someone so wonderful, awesome and terrifying in the next that we’d better stop avoiding them now. Everyone is touched with the weight of glory and today’s bore is tomorrow’s celestial being.
This might sound far-fetched when you are trapped listening to a tale you’ve heard too many times, but it is worth taking a moment to reflect. Behind Lewis’s observation is a kind of hidden rage – how dare we judge others to be boring?
I actually achieve a true zen experience in seeking out the dull and taking the time to listen to them, often at length. After a few moments I can let my mind empty and just listen to the sound of the voice. It is a relief not to have to make conversation or try to be brilliant or witty. And frequently there are real gems in there, if you have the will to listen long enough and perhaps behind the words. There are personal insights, odd family tragedies and bits of information you didn’t know you needed.
I had a friend who everyone else avoided. He was into buses, and we’d sit and drink tea as he ran through the best buses of all time, the best routes, the way they were manufactured. I realized that I was hearing a great story about British innovation and a life before motorways and Tesla cars and all the other rubbish that goes with modern life. What’s more, my friend was the kindest man you’d ever meet. Yet he’d spent a lifetime having the kinds of moment I had with Prince Philip.
In Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, which I snobbishly refused to read for many years, one of his rules is that we should become genuinely interested in whoever we are talking to. We should talk about what they are passionate about, not what interests us. He believes that when we do this, they in turn find us captivating. It’s the basis for lifelong friendships and business success.
I commend a life of hunting out boring people at parties and beyond. Not because they are boring, but because they aren’t. In fact, I’d go further than Lewis. It’s actually the ostentatiously “interesting” people who should be avoided at parties. Because behind all that “interest” is probably just ego and a load of puff.
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