The Problem With People
“It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
Black-and-white or all-or-nothing thinking involves putting people into boxes and labelling them unfairly. It’s typically frowned upon.
You shouldn’t generalise.
You shouldn’t view people in such a simplistic light.
I agree, but I also think we all go through phases where it’s hard to connect with people — and we have to fight our tendency to blame our lack of connection on our surroundings, rather than ourselves, our narcissism or things we may be doing to prevent connection.
Just for a second, imagine that it isn’t your fault. Imagine that people really are as one-dimensional as they seem, and that you don’t need to give them the benefit of the doubt. They just need to do better. This predicament occurred to me recently.
Every time I go to a party I meet 10 variations of the same person. Every time I use a dating app I come across at least 20 guys with the same biography. Most conversations I have with people seem to revolve around the same array things such as 1.) their job 2.) where they live 3.) what they studied at university 4.) Whether they preferred Barbie or Oppenheimer.
The dates I go on seem to have a similar pattern, plus some long-winded conversation about the other person’s latest situationship (the most cliché problem in the first world).
The occurrence of meeting someone whose favourite weekend pastime is either getting shitfaced or watching The Office has become so ubiquitous, I think I’d rather just stay home.
People are fucking boring. They are.
Perhaps this is all just a projection. When I meet someone else, the other person reminds me too much of my own boring-ness and that’s why I have an aversion to them. If I’m constantly finding people boring then I’m probably the boring one.
Maybe I’m just going through a phase. I’m not trying hard enough. I feel disconnected and so I’m not putting in the effort to connect with others.
“I don’t know anyone who’s totally boring. Crack a person’s shell — there’s always something creepy underneath” — Renee, Yes Man
I’m self-absorbed for thinking I’m not one of the boring ones, and that I could even be described as interesting.
I know asking the right questions means I should be able to have an interesting conversation with anyone. People just need a reminder that there’s more to themselves than the shallow facade they put on for the outside world. I thought I could be that reminder for them.
But often times it doesn’t feel like that now. Every conversation I have feels like a conversation I’ve had before. I feel a suffocating sensation of déjà vu with nearly every social interaction.
It’s probably somewhat my fault, but it can’t be all my fault. People just can’t seem to sell themselves.
Everyone is interesting, most people just forget how to demonstrate the fact that they are, and that’s what makes them boring. People downgrade themselves. They forget the child-like wonder and passion they used to have. They conform. They forget their own complexity and so they use simplistic language to describe themselves, others and the past.
That’s why dramatism is so important. It is far easier to seem interesting if you have a way with words. It is far easier to make people think your life is extraordinary if you’re good at telling stories.
Poor storytellers are everywhere. They’re often exceedingly humble but also unremarkable and un-inquisitive. That makes it difficult for them to tell their own story.
They don’t know too much about their family’s past other than the fact that they moved here because of some war in country X. Their interests are superficial, and so they’re not curious enough to ask their parents or grandparents for the family history — they think it’s not important to know or talk about that stuff. Or they know, and stay quiet about it because they’re too afraid of dumb stigmas like “oversharing”.
Exaggerate. Sensationalise. Emphasise. Contextualise.
Those are the methods that people need to know in order to make themselves interesting through words.
No matter how often you hear stupid phrases or insults like ‘he’s just a basic middle class white male’, one’s identity won’t ever be a determinant of how interesting they are.
Many people come from incredibly unique circumstances, with ancestors who survived wars and famines, but still could never do their story justice. They could never write a memoir as good as David Foster Wallace’s. He was a ‘basic middle-class white male’ but is still far more fascinating than most of us will ever be. He knew how to tell his own stories masterfully. If you haven’t read his Tennis, Trigonometry and Tornadoes, I suggest you do. It’s the perfect example of how someone can make a relatively ordinary American upbringing sound extraordinary.
There a lot of factors that can cause a person to become boring, ranging from the inability to take risks, to the inability to grow or overcome vicious cycles. Another thing I’ve come to believe is that, the inability to be bored is what makes people boring.
You don’t need a PhD to know that this generation has a problem with distractions, we have them everywhere and they’re easily accessible. These distractions aren’t just social media. These distractions are unsatisfying relationships, mediocre social gatherings, drugs and alcohol. We may need these things in moderation but too many people take them in excess, because they’re too afraid of the mundane. They’re too afraid of getting bored. Even though getting bored would likely lead them to doing something more brilliant.
Like I said before, it’s possible there is no problem at all. Or perhaps I’m the problem.
I live in one of the biggest cities in the world, yet I complain about the lack of variety in terms of people I encounter.
Maybe I just live in my own sort of echo chamber and the limits of this are being reflected back to me, this is often the case when someone feels like they are constantly meeting the same kinds of people.
And as this article may sound obnoxious, I just think it’s fair to say that there are a lot of people who can, simply, do better.
The world would be a greater place if more people had the capacity to.
