# 1) Are you an interesting person? 2) Have you lived an interesting life?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 19, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719 "2012-07-19T14:44:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/41 "2012-07-20T12:03:09Z")
> [@Iggy](#):
>
> I lived an entire year without seeing the sun once.
>
> I lived an entire year in adulthood without wearing shoes.
I don’t always post in IMDB…but when I do, I drink Dos Equis.😃
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### Author:  [@DrumBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrumBum)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/42 "2012-07-20T12:50:38Z")
No & No
The dog thinks I am interesting but the cats don’t give a shit unless there is food involved.
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### Author:  [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/43 "2012-07-20T13:02:44Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#):
>
> Why does it bother you? I don’t think of it as a contest.
I just think it’s so sad - and maybe shows a lack of gratitude? A lack of appreciation for the interesting-ness of your lives? Or maybe it’s all society’s fault - perhaps people have been conditioned by the media (or whatever) to believe that X has to happen in order for interesting to occur? If that’s the case, I think you’ve been robbed.
I can’t fathom not finding life interesting.
Of course, I’m baffled by the audiences at the free jazz concerts performed by our local college. We’re talking free! Jazz! And these kids, these students, they BUST it out. I sit in the darkness be-bopping along, wishing it was possible to really dance with someone at these events, and when the lights come up I look at the faces around me and they’re all half-asleep. Zombies. Most of them are elderly, because that’s who goes to free jazz concerts at the local college, but still. I suppose probably it wasn’t “truly unique” enough for them to bother engaging.
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### Author:  [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/44 "2012-07-20T14:00:29Z")
1. I’d like to think I am, but I’m sure I’m just average (which is a stealth-brag, given the room). Still, the look of shock I sometimes see on faces makes me think I could be, potentially.
2. I’m like that program you’ve never put on your PC. I have lots of dust and I don’t get put to good use regularly. I bought & live in a house less than a mile from where I grew up. I’m under employed and in a field that is totally wrong for me. But I have had some moments.
I did get to save a kid who was falling by catching him before he hit the ground, and in front of my kid too. I also managed to pull out a kid who’d cut his hand and was stuck at the top of the big ropes at Sesame Place once, also in front of my kid.
The blood freaked out my kid. And the park employee, who wouldn’t go out onto the ropes.
There might be other things, but its time for work…
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### Author:  [@Curiosity\_Kills\_Her](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Curiosity_Kills_Her)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/45 "2012-07-20T14:07:14Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#):
>
> Ah, _here_ I’m exactly the opposite. Just about everyone interests me. I’ll talk to anyone about who they are and how they came to be that way, and most of the time be completely and sincerely interested.
100% this. Everyone has a story, and many of them might surprise you.
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### Author:  [@LaurenIpsum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LaurenIpsum)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/46 "2012-07-20T14:11:00Z")
No and no. Boy, now I’m depressed…
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/47 "2012-07-20T14:14:14Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> I’m in the 3rd grade walking home from 7-11 with my cherry/cola slurpee. It was kickass too. The guy made them \ with 6 layers. Walking home alone a guy pulls up and asks if I want a ride home. Well who wants to walk so I say sure. I get in the car and
>
> He takes me to my house and drops me off.
When I was 7, I decided to ride my bike to school in the middle of a blizzard. I had no fucking idea how to get to school, I guess I just figured I’d work that out later. We lived right off the interstate so I was basically going down the highway on a bicycle. I wandered around for hours, cold and hungry, and ultimately ended up with my bike in the back of some random man’s car while he drove me to school.
My Mom still twitches whenever anyone brings that up.
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/48 "2012-07-20T14:29:52Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#):
>
> Not that I’m bored or unhappy with my life. I think I’m luckier than most, but even among my friends, my life does not particularly stand out to me.
This is where I am, too. I’m not a bad person to be around, most of the time, but I’m pretty average when it comes to being interesting. I’m interested more than I’m interesting.
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### Author:  [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/49 "2012-07-20T14:33:37Z")
> [@fessie](#):
>
> I just think it’s so sad - and maybe shows a lack of gratitude? A lack of appreciation for the interesting-ness of your lives? Or maybe it’s all society’s fault - perhaps people have been conditioned by the media (or whatever) to believe that X has to happen in order for interesting to occur? If that’s the case, I think you’ve been robbed.
>
> I can’t fathom not finding life interesting.
>
> Of course, I’m baffled by the audiences at the free jazz concerts performed by our local college. We’re talking free! Jazz! And these kids, these students, they BUST it out. I sit in the darkness be-bopping along, wishing it was possible to really dance with someone at these events, and when the lights come up I look at the faces around me and they’re all half-asleep. Zombies. Most of them are elderly, because that’s who goes to free jazz concerts at the local college, but still. I suppose probably it wasn’t “truly unique” enough for them to bother engaging.
Wow, you are making a lot of assumptions about my life.
Maybe I didn’t phrase it very well. I think most people have something interesting about them. To me that’s the norm. There are very few people who are interesting in a way that truly sets them apart from that norm. That doesn’t mean I don’t find my own friends or my own life interesting.
Or to paraphrase the Incredibles, when everyone is interesting, no one is interesting.
Also some people just find jazz boring.
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### Author:  [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/50 "2012-07-20T14:47:36Z")
I don’t think I’m a particularly interesting person.
People have told me that I have had an interesting life. I don’t often think of it that way because from my side of things it’s just life, and probably more boring than most people’s lives. It’s way outside the norm for anyone I know, so to them it’s a lot more interesting.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/51 "2012-07-20T14:49:24Z")
Yes, and since self-praise is no recommendation, I can prove it: when I’d write a story or make a picture in school, the teachers would always say “That’s…_interesting_.”
I could identify with the protagonist of the short story [The Country of the Kind,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Country_of_the_Kind) who lives in a society where everyone is too nice to outright hurt him, but otherwise will have nothing to do with him.
Any of you who despair that your lives aren’t “interesting,” take consolation that you aren’t “…_interesting_.”
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### Author:  [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/52 "2012-07-20T22:06:00Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#):
>
> 1. no
> 2. no
>
> I do not believe that most people are interesting, although I recognize that most people think they themselves are interesting. I don’t find the minutiae of day-to-day life interesting, though, not even for someone who, say, has 12+ kids and is frequently in the news. Having children does not make you interesting. Traveling does not make you interesting, unless you are traveling to deworm African orphans for free. Being a politician does not make you interesting, unless you’re the president. Being a judge does not make you interesting unless you’re on the Supreme Court. Being a physicist does not make you interesting unless you’re Stephen Hawking… etc.
>
> Things that DO make people interesting are only those things which are truly exceptional. Going to the moon, saving a fellow climber on Mount Everest, curing cancer, finding the Higgs boson… Plain old astronauts and mountain climbers and cancer researchers and physicists aren’t interesting people merely by dint of their profession, much \*less \*the “normies” of mankind (drones with office jobs, like me).
>
> I think the US would be in much better shape if we all stopped thinking our mundane lives were so interesting.
How do you square that with your activity on this message board? In a year and a half you’ve been very active here; posting over 5,000 times and presumably reading tens of thousands of posts, the vast majority of which are people talking about their lives and presenting their ideas.
If the only ones that are “interesting” (by your definition) are from cancer-curers and moon walkers and the such, why bother?
It’s somewhat of a rhetorical question. Of \*course \*you find the people here (and elsewhere?–Facebook, etc?) interesting, or else you wouldn’t waste your time reading what they had to say.
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### Author:  [@partlycloudy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partlycloudy)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/53 "2012-07-20T22:32:38Z")
> [@Maastricht](#):
>
> As I am a nature geek, bumps on logs can interest me endlessly. Bugs, lichens, fungae…But does that make _me_ interesting ?
_I_ think that makes you interesting! But that’s because I find those things interesting too, and having you around would give me someone to talk to about it.
As for me, I try to lead an interesting life just for myself, not to try to be interesting to other people. So to me, I’m interesting. 😃 As far as interesting to other people, I tend to not think I am very much. Although some acquaintances and the family that I see during holiday-time seem to think I’m interesting just because they’ve heard some or other fact about me that is unusual (that I’m a pilot, or that I’ve traveled to Africa quite a lot). But I think that’s because they lead more regular lives… not necessarily less interesting, just more “like each other.” Or is “more like each other” by definition “less interesting”?
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/54 "2012-07-20T22:57:31Z")
> [@fessie](#):
>
> I just think it’s so sad - and maybe shows a lack of gratitude? A lack of appreciation for the interesting-ness of your lives? Or maybe it’s all society’s fault - perhaps people have been conditioned by the media (or whatever) to believe that X has to happen in order for interesting to occur? If that’s the case, I think you’ve been robbed.
>
> I can’t fathom not finding life interesting.
I think you may be misunderstanding what some of us are saying.
I think what I’ve got going on in my life is interesting _to me_. My hobbies and fixations…the things that make me smile and feel good–yes, I’ve got “interests”. But would I go on a lecture circuit to talk about these things in public? No. Because I don’t think they are that interesting to other people. And also my communication is not compelling enough to make people interested, even if they were so inclined.
I know I’m an eccentric person who has been through some things in life. I’ve got a few anecdotes that I could share around the campfire and captivate an audience. But in my experience, almost everyone is like this. Everyone’s got their own personal Mt. Everest story of overcoming and adventure. But it’s the rare individual who has an actual Mt. Everest story.
I dunno. Maybe someone would look at me and find me to be intriguing. But I don’t think I’m that intriguing.
(Maybe a better question to ask is “Do other people think you’re interesting?”)
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2012, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/55 "2012-07-20T23:01:15Z")
The longer I live, the more I realize that fiction is less interesting than truth and that there are a TON of really interesting things that have happened to many, many “regular” people. But then, I like to live vicariously.
I think I’m a pretty interesting person to talk to. My “interesting” stories end with the usual youthful travel and youthful indiscretions, unfortunately. Which aren’t very interesting.
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### Author:  [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/56 "2012-07-21T00:40:35Z")
I’m not sure if anyone else finds me interesting, but I’d say I’ve had an interesting life so far by my own definition.
I’ve been to at least 8 countries solo (depends how you define a country- I’m not counting Wales in that) hitchhiked in three, (spending over a month doing that exclusively in NZ, just to see how many nice people I could meet - lots, and barely any nutters btw) plus I was basically brought up in a zoo. I’ve sung ‘I’m a little teapot’ in a sweatlodge with 6 half-naked Māori guys, learnt to dive, performed as a hula-hooper and stiltwalker with a fire troupe at a few festivals, stayed in a Kenyan brothel (family holiday), drove an ice-cream van for a few months, and I’m not quite 30 yet.
Bit of a dull spot at the moment to be fair, but this too will pass.
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### Author:  [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2012, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/57 "2012-07-21T01:10:43Z")
No, and no, although I guess it’s possible that others might think otherwise…just like some of the things people think make themselves interesting I do not find all that interesting. So much of it depends on your own personal definition of “interesting.”
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### Author:  [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2012, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/58 "2012-07-21T01:19:15Z")
Very good question! I would say 30% would say I am interesting and I estimate that I have lived my life at about 30% of how interesting I would have liked to have made it.
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### Author:  [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/59 "2012-07-21T01:58:17Z")
**1) Are you an interesting person?**
NO.
**2) Have you lived an interesting life?**
NO.
Don’t know how to explain those answers beyond that.
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### Author:  [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2012, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-are-you-an-interesting-person-2-have-you-lived-an-interesting-life/628719/60 "2012-07-21T02:17:19Z")
Am I an interesting person? Probably to some people not to others. At the right moment in the right company I can be sparkling, vivacious and witty.
I am interesting to myself, no doubt many of my interests would bore others but they do interest me.
Have I led an interesting life? Not too much. Pretty average middle-class American life with good happily married parents and some nice siblings…leading to a happily married adulthood with some nice children. This makes me very happy and I don’t care if it’s not particularly interesting. The few things that make my life unusual, which might scan as “interesting”, have been terrible tragedies that I would have preferred to do without.
It is interesting to me that several of the posters who said they were not interesting are posters I am always interested in.
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