"I'm just a boring, normal, everyday person, OK?"

haha the 1950s to thread

Before I could enjoy the first sip of frozen vodka ice crystalline perfection, the dog announced that he must visit the backyard by scratching the patio door in the breakfast room. My shoes returned to my feet and I leashed the dog; he is only one year old and thusly not to be trusted off-leash on an unfenced corner lot.

The dog’s dirty business complete, I returned to my martini as my wife plated slabs of loafed ground meat and steamed broccoli. I called to our four year old who announced that he was busy playing with his trains. He dutifully washed his hands and joined us at the table.

As the first bite of steaming loaf approached my lips, the telephone rang. I answered. I listened. I announced in a polite but firm voice that I was not going to switch to AT&T, not now, not ever, and hung up. I returned to my meal.

“I was wondering,” my wife asked “are we boring?”

Bingo is the best. I have lifetime membership of Mecca!

1) Jobs
2) Traditional pursuits
3) Having a night in

Now, I'm not a big fan of 2 & 3 usually (though it's not a knock to those who do - I just have no patience). But what I want to know is if you refuse all 3, how the hell do you pay for your jet set every-day-is-a-holiday life style? What the hell? Is everyone on ILX a trustafarian or something?

Nights in are wonderful. Nights out can be very fun. Just balance them out.

It's a genuine question. There are certain people who always have the same exact response to questions like this - interests such as xyz (ie middle american) are boring, corporate jobs are for morons, etc. It's a tiny subset of ILX. I want to know how they afford it, what that group does with their financial lives.

Besides Momus, I mean, I know how he makes his money.

not everybody's in a shitty grueling job that makes them bitter and resentful, either
Hmmm... I complain about work a lot. But I'd rather have this job and occasionally be able to save up for things like that trip to Paris, more music equipment, and one day a house than go dumpster-diving like some of my friends do.

Uh, yeah, I'm well aware. Quite frankly, I think you're being obnoxious, Jody. As I said, it's a genuine question - I have no idea what these people actually DO and was curious. I mean, I don't quite understand why Dave Q's query translated into (initially) about a thread about how people with 9-5 jobs are boring assholes and people who knit suck. But if we are going to make it about me, I have quite an excellent life - if I didn't, I'd certainly be on ILX more often.

Dan's working hard for the money, I see.

Well, it's clear how you feel about ILXors, then. Don't fucking bother coming to any more FAPs.

I really wish I could knit. I tried to make a scarf but I kept losing loops (don't know the technical term for this) so it was getting smaller and smaller as I went along. Whoopsies! We need to have some sort of instructional knitting FAP.

But I'm a terribly dull person on my off hours, as these things go. Plenty of things like shows etc. often seem more work than they're worth -- I've got a sort of jaundiced McInerny resignation after a few years partying it up in college after which I settled into hanging around the co-op and bullshitting with friends for hours on end.

I mean if I could find a good place to go dancing around town where I'm safe from a stampede and they play good music and I won't feel awkward and expect foax to start pointing and laughing at me, things might be a bit different.

Well, it's clear how you feel about ILXors, then. Don't fucking bother coming to any more FAPs.

-- Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, February 26, 2003 12:28 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

DAAAAAMN

chaki, why?

Feeling a bit Gershy, Chaki?

chaki appreciates the fine art of the zing, as do many of us.

thank you, crutis.

that's not a zing, it's a "fuck you," and it's history, and ugly, and... ugh. Leave it alone.

thank you, kenan.

I agree with K, I thought zings were supposed to be funny.

Chaki is just warming up for a presidential bid.

"The Audacity of Chaki," by Chaki

yeah zing is the wrong word, but I couldn't think of another way of phrasing it that wouldn't make me sound like lj

it was just shocking. im sorry. i apologize for reviving a thread. sheesh. btw i have often wondered the same thing ally brings up in this thread.

ok i feel terrible now. sorry jbr fo realz.

at least 40% of ilx traffic these days is about getting chaki to apologise for things

I never understood dave q's original question, I mean what the heck was he saying to these people before they yelled this at him ? He never returned to the thread to answer this.

I thought zings were supposed to be funny.

Son, you're on the wrong board

From the Original Post:

...shouting some variation on the thread title at me! Always in that "coming-out-of-the-'boring'-closet" 'proud' manner...

The fact that these people thought it fitting to emphasize their dullness, defend their dullness, nay, champion their dullness, only means they probably felt that dave q (the OP) was challenging the validity of their choices in life.

I notice that dave q didn't say what he was saying or doing before these exchanges took place. He may just have been talking harmlessly about his various exciting personal pursuits, like Xtreme skiing or earning grandmaster chess points, but the fact that his interlocutors were consistently responding as if challenged suggests to me that he was being an asshole and banging on about how boring and dull their choices made 'most people's' lives, and how he personally disdained such choices and refused to be trapped that way into some meaningless shit, etc., etc.

Then he came running to ILE to get some validation for his heroic choices and to hear others tell him he was right, instead of being an asshole. Which kind of required some editing of the presentation.

Chaki, I think you should apologize on behalf of dave q.

It's about bitter schmucks who swing their work ethics around like big snaky porn star dicks

I don't say often enough how much I enjoy JBR's posts.

I mostly do this when people seem to expect me to have exciting stories or news about how my life has been going, but I don't actually have anything I think they'll be interested in, or that I feel like talking about for very long. "Not much! I'm pretty boring! Just, you know ... working."

But yeah, it's not always a coming-out -- it's sometimes a matter of self-consciousness (in which case the polite response would be to put the person at ease by reassuring him/her that everyone spends nights ordering in and watching Law & Order marathons, and they don't need to feel all dull about it) or actual contentedness (like when you talk to happy couples and they're all like "we just stay in, we're boring," aka "we are completely involved with each other and no longer pretend to have exciting designs on the outside world").

And I was going to stay in tonight and read this

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/185205.ctl

Did JBR quit ILX too or something? What hath God wrought?

Sometimes I feel I am boring, but then I realize I am just predictable, not boring. I think it is easy to confuse the two when it comes to oneself.

yes they really are boring

TBH I find myself having to say things like this when an old friend rings after a long break and asks what I've been up to... and I tell them... and then they're all "but what else have you been up to?"

What. My life isn't entertaining enough for you? You have a fat boring wife and 2 kids and never see anyone anymore!

Um... OK I made this personal and I'll stop now.

I understand situations where you aren't in the mood to answer "wassup", but you can always say things like:

LIE-"I've been hanging around having a ball"
DUMB JOKE-"I've been making a huge motion picture involving time lapse photography of watching paint dry"
CASUAL-"You know how things are, I've been doing this and that"
or
URBAN-"you know how it is"

etc etc etc etc
there are many things to say besides "I AM BORING, I do nothing interesting (to you)"

Feeling a bit Gershy, Chaki?

-- Tuomas, Sunday, February 17, 2008 11:49 PM

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1189/1161323443_d2e17a2ee8_o.jpg

poor, poor, easter islands

I asked a cashier today "How are you?" and he said, "Do you REALLY want to know?" and I said, "Not particularly," knowing some fucking Eeyore screed was coming, and he whined his face off in spite of my disinterest. "How are you" is basically a greeting, there is one or two replies, "good" and "pretty good." I think. This works in my neighbs anyway bcz it is understood they know I only understand "como estas?" and "muy bien," not whatever it is in Spanish to mope extensively about personal issues few but your colsest friends care about.

i sometimes like to respond to 'how are you' with "shithouse" coupled with a hearty laugh

if you're going for truly obnoxious, a high-pitched scream always does the trick

Me & my brother, when driving a long way home at midnight, decided to invent a "passing time in the car" game called "scream," where we screamed as loud and long as we could. After a good 15-20 minutes of that, silence sounds fucking WEIRD.

ANd there we go: when I think I'm BORING, it's because I'm always telling stories about "me and my crazy family and their 'ligin." But is that dull? Probably not, it is just something I do predictably.

Ha, on New year's eve there was this dude at the party who was 1) stealing my scotch and 2)really fucked up and talking to himself. He sat down next to us and I started screaming at him, and he went away.

..I didn't find out he was stealing the booze until later on.

...Worst nye evah.

TBH I find myself having to say things like this when an old friend rings after a long break and asks what I've been up to... and I tell them... and then they're all "but what else have you been up to?"

What. My life isn't entertaining enough for you? You have a fat boring wife and 2 kids and never see anyone anymore!

Um... OK I made this personal and I'll stop now.

-- Trayce, Tuesday, 19 February 2008 15:11 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

This is so true though. I do loads of interesting stuff, and a lot of it changes annually. If I'm talking to someone boring about it, THEY DON'T CARE. They want to hear about how my flat is and how my car is and what I had for lunch and what the weather was like last week.

I take from this that boring people can only cope with boring, and that this is a protection mechanism to prevent their tiny little minds snappping whenever they hear anything interesting.

Did JBR quit ILX too or something?

Nope. JBR = get bent

add to that people who conclude (loudly) that I'm overly opinionated/outspoken. THESE PEOPLE READ MURDOCH PAPERS. I mean fucking honestly.

Sorry, getting wound up just thinking about it.

Actually I thought about this more, and I think the "I'm boring" dance usually goes about like this with me, translated for brevity

PLEASANTRY: hi, nabisco, what have you been up to
RESPONSE: this and that and here's one minor development, so not much
FLATTERY: oh c'mon, you're always doing hip and interesting things
SEMI-MODESTY: no, really, my life's pretty boring, i just work and stuff

Tuom of Finland, gershy?

itt tuomas of finland

Wow, FTW and FTW.

Is there a difference between being seriously boring and seriously depressed: y/n?

dave q might have been acting like a dick to the people who responded in this manner.

o rly

o_O