There are a handful of obsessive mania-types I can get along with swimmingly. Kleptos, heavy-drinking dipsos and nymphos to name a few. But at monomaniacs, I draw the line. Give me anything, anyone, at a social occasion — but not a one-topic conversation.
Why is it that the fewer interests people have, the more boring they become? One wonders what history’s great Renaissance men would have made of today’s crypto bros or blockchain fanatics. I pick on blockchain because, as with so many problems benighting the world, technology is to blame. I’m no Luddite, but I hereby shame content algorithms in the strongest of biblical terms saying, Verily, ye have spawned dullards.
Think about it: so reactive is the software behind your daily scroll that it shrinks your interests almost instantly. Click on a single video of an attractive redhead fly-fishing in Scotland, and you doom yourself to weeks of posts from accounts with names like GlasgowGingerbapsGrabsCod. Such curation seems like a helpful feature of modern life, until you realize it’s the reason all the media you hoover up centres on a tiny handful of topics. Which means, predictably, that’s all you talk about. A depressing thought springs up: our entire personality, all our mortal passions and hopes, can be summarised with a quick scan of one’s Instagram ‘For You’ tab.
Most depressing is how common a certain species of soliloquist has become: the workaholic, passionate about nothing but their 9 to 5. Recently I ran into someone who clung with such ferocity into speaking solely about their career that I changed the topic with a desperate gambit. ‘You’re really into your job, which is super!’ I chuckled, stifling a yawn. ‘But what’s your life goal? What does your dream retirement look like?’
It is my strange curse to be veritable catnip to these people. Conversational one-noters fall on me like flies. Maybe it’s my drama school past, where we were ordered to keep improvisation going with a friendly ‘yes and’ response in every scene, but in a knees-up of 50 people, I inevitably end up with the biggest party downer. It reminds me of the running gag in Airplane, where passenger after passenger would rather immolate themselves than hear the main character blather on about his doomed relationship. I know how they feel.
To those who would dub me a bitter misanthrope, I say — correct. I have few convictions, but I am convinced of this: life is too short to put up with bores. The drain of encountering the human form of a yawn emoji can leave me jaded for days. Being mid-chat with these energy vampires, smiling on the outside and muttering ‘death, where is thy sting’ inside, makes one yearn for caveman days, when dullards were surely brained with a rock for the good of the tribe. At a time when social contact has drowned in a sea of screentime, I want my precious few face-to-face interactions to be vivacious, full of bonhomie and quotes I savour in the cab ride home. I want good banter that feels like the best kind of one-upmanship, when stories carom in the air and everyone leaves buzzing and pleasantly spent, like after a good tennis rally.
At a time when social contact has drowned in a sea of screentime, I want my precious few face-to-face interactions to be vivacious
So, to solutions. Death and taxes being not the only inevitables, we shall all face a bore far more often than we’d like. What should you do if you end up the recipient of a one-man (and sorry lads, but the culprit is rarely a woman) monologue, someone blessed with Olympic levels of aridity and an inability to stray from the topic one iota? At this point, Airplane-style immolation not being an option, I can offer an oddly effective countermeasure: Personally, if fleeing the field of dullness and changing the topic are impossible (damn you, sit-down dinners), I lean into the pain. Instead of vainly trying to change the subject, I see how long I can keep the bore going, fanning the flames with counterfeit interest.
For bonus points, see how little back-chat you can get away with. It’s surprisingly entertaining to find that the most minimal, geisha-like nod will keep conversational drek flowing easily. Just last week, I was trapped next to a monologuing ultra-bore for close to an hour. I spoke for less than 90 seconds. (Yes, I counted.) It was a pointless yet oddly thrilling exercise, like running a four-minute mile — though to misquote King Pyrrhus after he defeated the Romans in battle, ‘another chat like that and I’m done for’. Anyway, I should stop talking your ear off now. It turns out I’ve been babbling about the same thing for minutes on end. Mea culpa.
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