I. Stuck in traffic I laughed out loud when I saw the bumper sticker on the car in front of me. The bumper sticker said:
ANNOY THE BORING
The car had no other bumper stickers, suggesting this bumper sticker had nothing to do with 2020 politics. In fact the bumper sticker looked like it’d been on the car for years.
While we’ll never know why this person put this particular bumper sticker on his car it does lend itself to contemplation. I figure we all know how to ANNOY each other without any further investigation, but we can contemplate who THE BORING might be.
‘Tis a fact that you have to define your terms if you want to communicate a useful + meaningful message. No doubt this bumper sticker was meant to be a prompt for existential thought, a declaration of raison d’être, and a catalyst for conversation.
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II. So I sat down at ye olde computer to find the dictionary definition for *boring* while also checking what the thesaurus had to say. Then I did a fast internet search about *boring people* so I might learn about the traits generally associated with people who are considered boring.
Synthesizing this information I created the following cursory list of the types of people who I shall refer to jointly and separately as THE BORING.
INSIPID: talk too much/have unbalanced conversations
STALE: stuck in a rut or routine never doing anything new
LACKLUSTER: have no opinions about or passions for anything in life
QUOTIDIAN: hang on phone or stare at other screen instead of engaging directly with people
TIRESOME: only complain or talk about their disappointments in life, what is wrong with the world
SOUL-DESTROYING: lack, or do not use, empathy/are bad listeners
DULLSVILLE: talk in droning voice, often referred to as flat affect
STODGY: have no sense of humor &/or cannot tell a story/joke
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III. Below is a poll question for you to answer. I listed THE BORING, as defined above, in such a way as to allow you to pick one. That is, which one of these types of behaviors drives you bonkers the fastest?
Or to put it differently: WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO ANNOY THE MOST?