Boring

It's possible to be boring at any age, but there's something particularly depressing to me about middle-aged boring people. Maybe it's my fear of becoming one of them. Or my concern that if they haven't become interesting yet, they may never get around to it.

I was sitting in my local bagel shop eating lunch with Knox today and eavesdropping on three boringly dressed and boringly accessorized middle-aged women conversing, and I thought: "Man, adults are so boring." One woman was telling her lunchmates about so-and-so's divorce and Catholic annulment and how she was trying to piece it together from snippets on Facebook and texting someone's brother. It was neither juicy like a novel nor sad like something closer to home; it was just boring. The only mystery involved was trying to figure out why the marriage needed to be annulled--turns out the Catholic partner wanted to remarry. No discussion of civil and religious marriage laws ensued. The conversation didn't lead to any heated debate on same-sex marriage. No one volunteered that they had had a huge crush on their priest when they were in high school and still felt guilty for trying to flirt with him. They just sat there next to their boring, middle-aged handbags and moved on to talking about contractors for home renovations.

I was so glad when at that point Knox stuck his fingers up my nose to liven up my lunchtime, then told me I looked weird wearing my stupid Nantucket cap. I don't think you have to live an exciting life to be an interesting person. I want to practice the art of conversation and perhaps learn a thing or two from the stage so that I can be in character as an interesting person so that when I am lunching with the ladies, the lone mom eavesdropping on my conversation won't be relieved when her child does something obnoxious simply because it breaks up the boredom of overhearing me talk.