Discovering somebody you used to be close friends with is now very boring -- dud or dud?

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Does this actually happen? I'm not quite sure whether we're just not connecting and talking anymore or if they're as boring as they seemed when I hung out with them the other night. Does this actually happen to people... they simply stop having interesting things to think and say? Or is it necc. just a matter of me not caring?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 15 March 2004 10:38 (twenty-two years ago)

But then I'm finding waaay too much human interaction boring lately.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 15 March 2004 10:39 (twenty-two years ago)

this happens sometimes but i try to be diplomatic and think of us as having "drifted apart" in terms of interests and way of speaking, rather than one of us having gotten boring

that way i don't have to worry about him or her thinking i've gotten boring, either

― !!!! (amateurist), Monday, 15 March 2004 10:40 (twenty-two years ago)

"how was the other night?"

"sorta dull actually."

"i thought you'd think that."

"not the people necessarily, just that nobody was saying anything or whatever. is it always like that?"

"depends how much we drink."

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 15 March 2004 10:41 (twenty-two years ago)

It's not my fault I'm middle aged and middle class. Leave me alone. Waaaahhhhh!

― The River Kate (kate), Monday, 15 March 2004 10:41 (twenty-two years ago)

i didn't get who that conversation was between

you know i often find it boring when people tell me they're bored, or tell they find something boring

but as you get older people's interests to tend to diverge and narrow, especially in that post-college period before people start having husbands and wives and babies and can go down that route of conversation

― !!!! (amateurist), Monday, 15 March 2004 10:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Its happened to me loadsa times. I guess its just general drifting, y'know? Like, you grow up with each other, but then after you've grown up, you move away from each other, and your lives take different paths with different outcomes. It's sad.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Monday, 15 March 2004 10:46 (twenty-two years ago)

on the other hand it can be kind of interesting to put some energy into bridging those newfound gaps

sometimes it sorta works, sometimes it feels like a big waste of energy and only increases the tragedy

― !!!! (amateurist), Monday, 15 March 2004 10:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I caught up with my best friend from school recently, she's been staying in Oxford for the past few years. We sat pretty much in silence getting pissed, then realised that neither of us have the same interests we used to share. We've drifted so far apart that things aren't even comfortable any more.

And she's still into ponies.

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Monday, 15 March 2004 13:51 (twenty-two years ago)

And she's still into ponies.

...but in scary new ways, yeah?

― winterland, Monday, 15 March 2004 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I just met up with a friend from high school on Friday. At 39, he's still in high school. Swears in front of his kid, smokes weed all day long, only listens to music released before 1980.

Fine for him if he's happy, but not my scene.

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

this is all my of my friends, these days. i still love themthough.

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Give your friend another chance in a year or so. Maybe he/she was just having a bad night. Sometimes I'm really boring if I haven't had enough sleep or something and should've just stayed home. Most of the time, though, I'm a FASCINATING conversationalist.

― Maria D., Monday, 15 March 2004 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm still in contact with the guy who was my best friend from when I was 10 till about 17. I really can't bear to be in his company any more, as his only topics of conversation are football violence, "birds" he's "pulled", and rhyming slang for sexual acts.

So, yeah, dud.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:28 (twenty-two years ago)

What's wrong with swearing in front of kids?

― Maria D., Monday, 15 March 2004 14:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I suspect that's what people would feel if they met me now (well, the few who didn't already think I was a boring nerd)
Not so much that I think I'm boring, but that I've just pampered my love of solitarity to such extents that I don't even know how to go about having social conversation.
It's not really an issue though, as I always find a way to steer clear of such reunions

― Ochstein H-O (Øystein H-O), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:31 (twenty-two years ago)

It's like running before you can walk: if you learn to disregard the formality of polite behaviour without having grasped why polite behaviour is a socially useful construct, you're not really going to be setting yourself up for a productive life.

sorry xpost

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

My parents said it was okay to swear in front of them but not in front of other people's parents. They swore sometimes. I actually hardly ever swear. I think investing swear words with taboo power makes them more appealling to kids. Kids learn about polite behavior, even from seeing their parents model impolite behavior.

― Maria D., Monday, 15 March 2004 14:35 (twenty-two years ago)

How about when you meet up with an old high school friend and it turns out they've become a junkie? Talk about boring!

― Maria D., Monday, 15 March 2004 14:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't mind kids knowing how to swear. But every other sentence (in front of a 9 year old) was "fuckin'" something... She's going to grow up adopting that style, which is more annoying than it is offensive.

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I grew up with my mum and my gran (god rest her soul) who both swore like Ozzies. I'm not much of a swearer myself and I can't get to grips with how easily mum could swear conversationally with her own mum. When I do swear in front of mum I always find myself looking to see what her reaction is - even though I know she doesn't give a hoot.

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Exactly. If you use profanity as emphasis, under circumstances when it's not particularly offensive or is at least funny, then fine. Growing up using it as punctuation just because it's what your parents do/because it pisses people off is grim and prevents you from expressing yourself adequately.

xpost again. Bah.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I cut off relationships with people from my past long before we have the chance to bore each other. I prefer to bore people with whom I am current. I am always warned that this will mean a lonely old age.

― Hunter (Hunter), Monday, 15 March 2004 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a friend who I used to be very close to who I can barely stand to be around nowdays. All the little things that used to only minorly niggle at me about him are now really magnified, I dont know why. He hasnt changed at all, I just dont find it as amusing or something. Thing is I havent the heart to tell him; even though we catch up only rarely now I know he still regards me as a very good friend, and I feel a bit guilty.

Still, drfiting apart from boredom's probably better than the situ I have now with another friend, who I'm finding it hard to be around because she's starting to get into music and scene shit I find tiresomly poseurish and silly, and she has another close friend I really dont like - but I cant exactly tell her any of this :(

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:17 (twenty-two years ago)

*sob* why didn't you just tell me!

― the surface noise (electricsound), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:17 (twenty-two years ago)

It was me she was talking about, you glory-seeking wannabe.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:18 (twenty-two years ago)

It's unlikely to be me as I don't have any friends.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha ha Jim ;)

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:27 (twenty-two years ago)

It was me she was talking about, you glory-seeking wannabe.

OH GOD I parsed that as "you glory-hole wannabe" and I was very scared.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:28 (twenty-two years ago)

You see? Jim has lots of friends because he makes them laugh. Me, I'm just a wanta be. And there's no glory in my hole.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Im eric the half a be. err. Bee.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:30 (twenty-two years ago)

doo bee!

― the surface noise (electricsound), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:30 (twenty-two years ago)

did they find you boring too Sterling?

― mullygrubber (gaz), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:31 (twenty-two years ago)

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/index.php [/mimico jessington]

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 02:41 (twenty-two years ago)

this happens a lot for me. and often not even a 'discovery' after a gap but an incremental realization that you're really headed for different things. you begin to think your entire relationship with this person has been through some little idiosyncratic side of theirs which has eroded or is eroding away. though sometimes it is still there and you just have to meet outside of their social circle for it to come out again.

alternately, meeting somebody you weren't that close with after a long time out of some tenuous link to the past and getting along brilliantly as two completely different people - classic.

― scissors (Honda), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 05:41 (twenty-two years ago)

i wish i know, mullygrubber.

that's the depressing answer.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 02:33 (twenty-two years ago)

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