How upset would you be if someone said you were boring!

I find people do talk about their minor health issues a lot more as they get older, and that is so boring to everybody else - I make a conscious effort not to, and if somebody asks me how I am, I just say fine thanks and change the subject.

I’m probably an absolute bore when I’m talking about gardening, so I seek out fellow nerds who understand the obsession, and I wouldn’t be offended if somebody told me I was boring on, because it would be true.

Sorry blossoming when I said you I suppose I should have said one or maybe they. I didn’t mean you personally.

My friends are very similar to myself, I certainly wouldn’t call them boring, and I’ve never been called it, I think it’s quite a rude thing to say to someone, if someone I met was rambling on, I don’t think I’d batter an eyelid, it simply wouldn’t bother me,

Well I’m sure that someone in the past has thought that I was boring but have never said it to my face. It depends on what mood I am in whether I would take offence if they did say it. None of my friends would say it as we are such good friends and talk none stop. Well I sure hope they don’t think I am boring - er that has got me thinking…………………

Never going to happen

I guess I have quite a low boredom threshold. I don’t want to talk about the same things over and over again. The Nativity play that went wrong and was funny at the time, the operation and what the surgeon said.

What I’m having particular trouble with at the moment is the way in which, for some people, every subject of conversation only leads back to the one thing they’re interested in and want to talk about.

Four of us are talking about meeting up but one of them responds to anything someone else says with her pet subject. It kills the conversation dead. It’s a relatively new obsession but the other friends have noticed it in their phone calls with her. You can’t just change the subject. Her next sentence is back to her interest.

Would it be so very awful to say that subject’s banned in a get together?

As FIL got older he lapsed into war memories more and more just like the uncle in 'Only Fools and Horses'. He was totally deaf so couldn't hear if anyone changed the subject, or joined in!
We also used to have a neighbour who would always repeat herself. On one occasion my youngest piped up 'You've already told us that'. Her reply was 'Well now I'm telling you again'.
In answer to the OP - well I think I'm boring so I can't get annoyed if anyone agrees!

Yes, afraid so.
I don’t mean to be rude to you Peasblossom but do we - all of us - become less tolerant of things as we age?
I think I do.

I would never say to someone’s face that they were boring, but would probably try and avoid them if it were a regular occurrence.

I’m sure we all bore others occasionally, you sometimes realise they have glazed over or are looking over your left shoulder for an excuse to get away. Hopefully not too often !

What is really boring is when someone's conversation is basically a monologue so there is little opportunity to steer the conversation round to another topic. I call my sister, who lives abroad, to make sure she's OK but I always have a magazine to hand to keep me interested whilst she drones on, usually about her health! She's the same face to face. She just doesn't pick up the body language or verbal cues. I am never boring though!

I'd be really upset if someone told me that although I suspect they might have a point. I actually think it would be mean to say that they were boring. There are other ways of dealing with something like this which are kinder.

I've just set some dates to meet up for lunches with friends for the first time since lockdown. I'm already worrying about being boring because I've not done anything worth mentioning. I don't think I used to be boring but now?
Years ago a friend told me that her husband thought I was very 'refreshing' in conversation. I'm still pondering that.

oh yes, dieting, her cat and her house, soooo boring is the girl from work

As I get older I even bore myself by recycling the same old anecdotes. I hear myself saying to people "Sorry, I think I've told you this before...." then launching straight into some saga regardless. Nobody's told me I'm boring yet but I bet they think it.

Sometimes I'm the boree. I discuss books we've read with one friend. She has amazing powers of recall and will regurgitate the contents of a book for at least an hour unless interrupted. Her secret is to take breaths mid-sentence so that I can't get a word in edgeways. I retaliate by faking a coughing fit or jumping up to visit the loo!

My next door neighbour can only talk about herself. She never wants to know what I'm doing or where I've been. Sometimes I ask her a question and it's as if I haven't spoken. She just carries right on with what she's talking about! I just let her prattle because I know she's lonely and just probably glad of a chance to talk.

I have no doubt I am boring to those who don't know me well - can't do small talk to save my life, have zero interest in most of the things that seem to be so interesting to many people, and since being on GN have stopped asking people questions about themselves because it is seen by so many as nosey. Fortunately every now and again I meet someone I have lots in common with that I click with who don't appear to find me boring.

Having said that, who cares if people you are not interested in find you boring?

No one has ever said that to me,and tbh it wouldn`t bother me if someone did because i know i`m not.

I worry ( a lot) that people may find DGS’s conversation difficult ( boring ?) as he grows older. He is on the Autistic Spectrum and so has passions, mainly maths and astronomy, that he can talk about at huge length , and be unable to pick up on when someone has lost interest. He is only 5 so maybe this will be a skill he can learn in later life, or , when he finds his ‘tribe’ he’ll be able to talk to his hearts vontent.

I had a neighbour who would come over for coffee and talk non-stop for an hour about her family in America and how awful they were, people I'd never met. She wouldn't pause for breath so you couldn't change the subject. Now that is boring!

Older people who talk endlessly about every detail of their medical problems and nothing else. Now that is boring!

I can tolerate most chit chat however trivial, but the key to being popular is to find their hot button. What are they really interested in? If you find that and then ask them lots of questions about it they will go away thinking what a wonderful, interesting person you are!

I have never been told I am boring I know it wouldn’t be said directly to me. I don’t think anyone who knows me would be that rude. It’s about tolerance isn’t really if there isn’t a lot going on in someone’s life it could make them boring. But they don’t deserve to be told that would be very hurtful.

I can’t say that I’ve come across many out-and-out boring people, although we did start avoiding neighbours, the chap who constantly told us about how he learned to rewire a house from a book and his wife who only ever talked about their daughter. The two other daughters never got a look in. Luckily, they eventually migrated to Australia.

I find certain topics boring, namely golf, curling and horses. I can feel my eyes glazing over when they come up.

I am more of a listener and interested in what people have to say. I hope I am not boring but probably am sometimes.

The thing is we don’t really want to meet up with her because we can’t have a chat together. It’s been a long time since we’ve met up. We want to enjoy it. She turns everything into the thing she wants to talk about.

And in the weekly phone call I have with her she’s been saying that other people only phone her now and again. I said soothing things like oh none of us have got anything to talk about anymore. But would it be kinder in the long run to say - I don’t know how to put it- it’s because you only want to talk about X?

The most boring woman I even knew was a near neighbour who often stopped me for a chat when she saw me at the weekend. She was a nice lady but she bored the pants off me by talking about her son who had emigrated for a brilliant job in New Zealand. I used to let her talk for a while then find a reason to disappear.

Just before I moved another neighbour told me that her DH had died of cancer a few years earlier and her son had died in NZ in a car accident some 20 years before. Left me feeling bad that I had never found some time for her but glad that I had let her talk so much and stayed friendly.

I’m a teacher. I suspect a fair proportion of my students would call me boring if they dared. I’m everyone’s favourite teacher on exam results day, though.