Someone joked about “The Boringtons” in another thread and made me think about the boring couples I’ve had to deal with socially.
These are a few of mine - what are yours?
Couple who co-own a kitchen remodeling small business. Endless monologues about the proper placement of spigots and the high price of raw materials. When one gets tired, the other one continues without missing a beat.
Ultra political husband with a Stepford Wife. Husband’s every anecdote ends in “…and the only station reporting that ------ is Fox News!”
(not trying to pick on conservatives - I’ve met socialist bores too)
Associate professor wife with a Stepford Husband. Wife seems to get in lots of disputes, and talks about how her group is filled with idiots who are conspiring against her. Husband is a greek chorus (“yeah, bunch of idiots”)
Foreign couple, joined at the elbow, who smile sweetly together and say nothing at all. They answer questions concisely with no follow up but seem to expect constant entertainment.
My husband and I went out with a couple I knew from work. She was my coworker first, which led me to a job at the same place her husband worked. So I knew them separately, but never together.
Together was hell. Turns out they had “routines” - and they took turns setting each other up for punchlines and such. I didn’t think that night would ever end. We never repeated it…
Gah. I know a complainer-couple like that, only it’s girlfriend who performs the chorus. I’ve never caught her having an idea of her own, but as they are joined at the hip (seriously, I think they go to the bathroom together) it’s not like I ever see them separately. Thank Og they’re at the edge of my social circle, so I don’t see them very often.
My Borey-Mcboringtons I see far more often is the vegetarian who cannot stop talking about how all animals are her friends. She such a cheerful little elf it makes me want to boil and eat a bunny.
I know the ‘too much bother’ couple. Almost anything most of us do on a daily basis is too much bother. I feel really sorry for their kids, because everything fun is too much bother. Christmas trees are too much bother, visiting relatives who live in the same city as them is too much bother, walking around their own neighborhood to look at the holiday lights is too much bother.
The man even takes a bus to and from work each day, although it’s only 1/2 mile from his house because biking is too much bother.
Have we met? The SO and I joke about being ‘that couple,’ but sometimes it gets a bit too close for comfort. Personally, though, I prefer nutty couples to boring ones.
We’re lucky to not know too many boring couples. There was the guy who acted like a spoiled brat when his wife didn’t wait on him hand and foot, but they’ve since gotten divorced. There is a woman who bursts into song, occasionally, though her partner doesn’t seem to notice.
I mentioned them in the original thread - a couple we’ve known for eight years (they still introduce themselves every time they see us) qualify for us. She never says a word, and he’s an engineer. They’re also about 20 years older than we are, and we just have nothing in common with them except being in the same childfree by choice social group. We call the The Stiffs, but The Boringtons would also work.
That might be us. When we had some houseguests recently, whenever the conversation lagged when we were with just my friend’s SO, I realized my husband and I tended to either talk about hockey or airplanes. This is a great guy, perfect for my friend, but he’s from the UK and our frames of reference and common interests are…well, not all that common, it seems! It was hard to force the conversation to shift to something else, since those really are topics my husband and I enjoy talking about!
Knew a couple in Berlin.
They had zero friends and when they met me, an American in Berlin, they latched on to me and I couldn’t shake them.
After many phone calls to me, I finally agreed and went to their apartment one night:
They showed slides of their trip to Spain - easily 200 slides or more, all pretty much the same boring shots - and made hardly a comment the whole time (which I believe took about an hour or so to watch).
Then the husband showed me his CD collection, all alphabetized, with a spiral notebook that also had the CD’s all listed and numbered.
During lulls in conversation (many during the course of the night) they would just stare at me until I said something.
It was quite awkward and I couldn’t wait to leave.
However, this was topped by two girls who had been students of mine.
They took a trip to Native American reservations in Canada (that is why they were learning English).
So, they invited me, and another of their English teachers, to their house when they returned.
They had about 500 slides to show (no exaggeration, really) and again, no comments, just a bunch of really boring shots of plucked corn fields in November, and a few shots of trailers where they visited.
They had no food or drinks.
We were there for about four hours before we could beg off and leave.
And my last Berlin couple - they had a party and invited me. A huge apartment with a gigantic living room. However, they had set the chairs (about 30 or so), in a circle, around the living room. You could not talk to the person across from you as it was a good 20 feet away, so you were stuck talking to whoever sat next to you. If you had to go to the restroom or kitchen, it was like walking though a ballroom with everyone staring at you, as there was nothing in the middle of that huge room. Another very awkward and boring night.
Have met my share of boring Americans as well, but those three examples in Berlin always come to mind when someone asks.
There’s a couple that I know who are quite pleasant, but can talk the hind leg off a donkey. The female has a large extended family and will go on at length about them and various anecdotes involving elderly relatives or her wayward siblings.
The male is a startlingly intelligent scholar who will doubtless make a name for himself in his field. The problem is, he assumes everybody cares about it to the same extent, including what one historian said about another historian. To some extent that’s true, as we mix in a group that did the same degree at university, but he will take every opportunity to dominate the conversation. I feigned illness and left one time a group of us were hanging out because he started talking about his marks for individual exams when he was an undergrad, and how there was much discussion amonsgt the staff about whether one paper deserved a high mark, or a super high mark.
He’s more boorish than boring, I guess. I think he knows how little I think of him, as he makes jokes about it, but self-deprecation when you’re that talented is even more annoying.
My in-laws (and my husband would agree). They don’t really have any friends, they just work part-time (they’ve spent more than they earned so they can’t retire yet) and watch tv.
Their current boringness is ringing us everytime the UK weather is mentioned on NZ TV. They think we are under five foot of snow and don’t believe us when we say we’re fine. They don’t believe the roads don’t need to be ploughed and they don’t believe I’m able to get to work each day just fine. They think we sit here shivering in the cold all night despite the fact that they have both lived in the UK in the past and know how prevalent central heating is here.
I used to work with this woman, more of an coworker friend then anything but she and her husband had just bought a new condo on one of the local islands here. Her mother was older and so they sold both houses and the husband and wife and mother moved into this fantastic place. It actually was quite a nice condo, top floor, overlooking the sound, etc.
So they are having an open house and they invited my wife and I. We had other plans later that day in Seattle but said we would stop by. We stop by their open house about an hour after it started. We were the first and ONLY guests. We had thought we could stop by for half an hour then head out to our other plans.
But it was so awkward. The three of them sitting on the couch looking expectently at us. Unless we talked it was dead silence. Luckily neither my wife or I are shy wall flowers so we were able to talk about their condo, health issues with the mom, etc. But if either of us stopped talking—dead silence.
Finally after 2 hours we left. No one else had shown up. I did hear the next day from her that a few people has shown up right before the end of the open house.
God that is my worst nightmare. Throwing a party and no one showing up, but at least I could entertain myself. I honestly think if we hadn’t shown up that they would have just sat on the couch, the three of them looking at the door waiting for someone to show up.
I still get the shivers when I think back about it. Nice people but boring as hell.
I think we’re kind of boring as a couple. Which is weird, because I am, while not the life of the party or anything, a fairly social, friendly person when I am alone. I have been known to set shy people at ease and get them to talking, and I used to be able to get everyone to dance.
When we are together, though, I tend to lean towards much more quiet and serious. Perhaps because I don’t feel the need to be chatty, since I already have my partner. Perhaps because he’s so quiet and reserved and serious.
But we don’t bore people to death by talking, at least. He’s just soooooo private it is hard to make even small talk, I admit.
This is much like my wife and me. She’s chatty with friends, and much more sociable than I am. I’m quiet and serious, with a very dry sense of humor that people in my area (of work, neighborhood, etc) don’t often get. And people have complained to me that I’m too private and closed off. I’m polite with people, but I’m just uncomfortable with most people. I enjoy being alone most of the time.
Yeah, that’s another thing - he can be super-snarky when he wants, and it always makes me laugh. I think I started dating him at first because of his caustic wit. But nowadays he’s all growed up and reins it in except in private.
My wife’s grandparents. EVERY holiday is held at their house. When the family is over, everyone retires to the living room to “visit.”
By “visit” I mean, talk about Aunt Myrtle’s gallbladder surgery. Or so-and-so over in Dillard who bought a new propane tank. Or the Presbyterian church in Salem, where the pilot light went out on their heater. Or Ethel, who brought coffee cake made with margarine instead of butter to the church potluck and no one liked it but they were all too polite to say anything.
But what really really gets me is how gossip-y these people are. Their favorite topic of conversation: how gossip-y the people they gossip about are.
