Being bored is like you’re just watching the clock and wishing it would move faster.
I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to not know that. I about want to stab someone for taking too long at the elevator. I really wish I could handle waiting.
My being bored usually comes from having options but not “feeling” like them. I could play a game, or read a book, or draw a picture, or watch a tv show, or…but I’m just not excited about them. Sometimes trying to do one of the things I could or should or would be doing ends up engaging me when I think it won’t, thereby breaking my boredrom, or it just doesn’t, and after fifteen minutes I put the thing back down feeling frustrated and unsatisfied.
Yes, basically it’s my inner mind just getting all whiny about how my awesome life just isn’t good enough at that moment. As a tradeoff there are other days where my mind feels like it’s vibrating, barely able to wait until I can get home and do this thing I’ve been wanting to do all day.
I have a little bit of an obsessive or addictive personality - might go hand in hand with the artistic thing. It may be that people who are able to focus strongly on a specific thing or idea are more prone to boredom as their fixations wax and wane. Deeper troughs lead to higher peaks.
The feeling itself could be best described as whiny restless frustration. “I want…I want…I don’t know what I want…but I want something!”
This describes it perfectly for me. I have simple pleasures, too – reading, sewing, puttering around the house – but if my back is acting up or I’m tired, I don’t seem to get much pleasure from them. And there’s an underlying restlessness, like I should be able to find something I’d like to be doing, but I can’t.
For me, it feels like the gentle rush of cool air when I open the refrigerator door.
For me, being bored is a sign of either being tired, or procrastinating something. Tiredness creates the “meh” feeling that you associate with boredom - nothing seems engaging because you just want to sleep (but if you’re not fully aware you’re tired, it just seems like nothing’s engaging, period). With procrastinating, you try to get your mind off whatever dull chore you have to do by doing fun things, but the feeling of impending doom from putting things off saps the fun out of them (opening the same SDMB thread for the fourteenth time to see if there are any new responses . . .). This also creates the sense that nothing in the world is interesting.
ETA: Oh, and there’s also a third kind - the previously mentioned “been on summer vacation for two and a half months” variety. But in adults, that’s fairly rare, and usually you find something to do after a while.
You busy tomorrow?
“The gift of Bangkok is that it never bores.” – Local American writer William Warren
I have to say, with no offense intended, that adults really have no business being bored. I remember being bored as a child (forced to go on a camping trip without any electronics, for example). But a child is forced into awkward situations like that regularly, where they just have to sit and wait. And not make any noise. Or use their imagination to do anything creative that will disrupt people.
Adults who complain about being bored really seem to be exhibiting a major character flaw, in my opinion. Even when I have to just sit and do nothing but stare (for example, when I was a teacher proctoring tests), I was still actively thinking and keeping myself entertained inside my own head thinking of things that need to be done, plans, and other interesting ideas.
I think it depends on what you are doing. Chiroptera, the fact that you don’t know what being bored ‘feels’ like is a little strange to me, but I guess you are privleged enough in your life to never be in a position to be bored 
.
I will say this, you take for granted that you have things to entertain yourself. Boredom is often being in a position where you don’t have anything to entertain yourself. You just have to sit there and wait for something, or need to complete a tedious task.
My job pays really well, but its boring. I drive the same bus route every day. I’m at work 12 and a half hours a day, 5 days a week, so much of my week is sitting in a bus where I can’t read, check my emails, etc. Sure there are people to talk to (and I make it a point to interact with people as much as possible so I don’t go stir crazy from boredom) but many people on the bus are not the type of people I would be having interesting conversations with. Somebody genuinely interested in what I do for a living can help stretch a conversation out, or somebody that coincidentally shares my interest, but those folks are rare. Usually its schitzophrenics, prosletyzers, people who don’t understand English, etc. Just not the type of folks you could chat about on interesting topics.
As strange as it sounds, ‘boring’ for me at my job is good, because if I had a ‘boring’ day, that meant I didn’t get in trouble or have something crazy happen (fight on the bus, traffic accident, somebody puked/shat all over the place, etc.) So while it does get boring and tedious at times, I really try to revel in it. Sometimes my days feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog day, where each day feels exactly the same as the last. But in a way that keeps the day from feeling too ‘long’ since I can kind of put my brain in autopilot until about 90 minutes before I’m done and think, “Hey, I’ll be home soon!” 
I find that statement strange as well. Particularly since my primary reason for even posting in SDMB is to relieve boredom.
Must be all the Ritalin the kids are taking these days.
Boredom is defined as “an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest and difficulty concentrating on the current activity". In other words, it feels like having to do something (or nothing) and wanting really really badly to do something else (although often you might not even know what that is).
Think of it like watching a TV show or reading a book you hate for the fifth time.
But I find it difficult to believe that someone wouldn’t ever have felt “bored” with anything. Whether that is a class in school, a slow period at work, or maybe the power goes out for a day.
I am glad that you can endure boredom, Incubus. Being able to endure boredom is a skill. I can’t imagine that a bus driver who is unable to go an hour without entertaining himself is all that safe of a driver. We really need you to be paying attention to the road. Not assembling your grocery list or daydreaming about your vacation. So learning how to get through tedium (without cheating) is brag-worthy, IMHO.
Blackberry’s comment about watching the clock nailed it for me, it’s that time creeps along unbearably slowly, that is the pervasive feeling.
I am an A+, Walter Mitty level daydreamer, so that helps me in many situations that have a lot of boredom potential … but my killer is still a long work meeting where I am not a primary participant, but might be called upon to clarify a specific point or provide particular information. I can’t be lost in my thoughts when that happens, I need to know what’s being talked about so I can answer.
So it’s being trapped in a room with nothing interesting going on, and I can’t even think any deep thoughts to entertain myself, much less whip out a phone or a book. The clock is slow as molasses.
Sarcasm-sense tingling! But seriously, I think being able to cope with being bored is just one of those things functional adults have to deal with. Having a boring job means I can afford to not be bored in my free time. I’m mature enough to understand not every waking moment of my day is solely dedicated to my constant need to be entertained.
Left to my devices, I’d be constantly interacting with others, reading, playing games, watching TV/movies/etc. Hell, it gets boring to eat without someone to talk to or something to read/watch/listen to. I think modern devices have made it easier to alleviate boredom; I’m always on my phone reading (the SDMB for example 
). But at my job I cant do those things, and have to deal with it.
jus
All of this resonates with me. It seems to me I haven’t felt truly bored since I was a kid. Now there is ALWAYS something I can do, or something I should do, or something that I have to do.
When I think about being bored as a kid I probably wasn’t actually bored then. There was never a shortage of books around. We weren’t particularly restricted from watching too much TV. I think what I was really feeling was frustration. I WANTED to be playing outside on a rainy day, so none of the 38 indoor options my mom invariably offered appealed.
I attended a seminar 10 or more years ago. The speaker said that with the advent of the internet, and video games, and gazillions of TV channels he didn’t believe his eight year old son had ever been bored. (The seminar was about marketing to “Gen Y”)
No sarcasm, Incubus. I’m honestly glad you can handle boredom.
(Really, my post was it was to counter the snooty opinion expressed earlier that boredom is a moral failure. Folks certainly do have some strange notions).
Oh, okay 
I agree with you it’s natural to feel bored sometimes. Either due to delayed gratification (I get paid enough to deal with boredom) or ambition (don’t want to settle for doing thing A when thing Q would be more interesting).
I think sometimes boredom is kind of like being hungry but you can’t decide you want to eat. You know you want to be nit-hungry, but haven’t decided on what to consume to alleviate the sensation. And sometimes we just get into a funk where NOTHING feels interesting; I like playing video games but if I have time to play because I pissed off my wife and she doesn’t want to talk to me, I won’t enjoy it.
/ his, exactly this. with a little bit of apathy but mainly this.
Sure you …an. Sorr… having a litt… …#troub…# he…r…#### bad connec.tion…
BEEEEEEP
msmith537 has left the call.
I’m pretty sure I actually have ADD (I was diagnosed with it but I still have some doubts, especially because I’m still the same way when I take Adderall) because I have to shake my foot until I fall asleep and as soon as I wake up, and just fiddle with things in general all the time. I can’t just be still and do nothing and I don’t really see how anyone can. But I don’t think that’s a character flaw. It’s not that I can’t entertain myself, it’s that I have to do several things at once in order to do it. That’s inconvenient but I don’t think it’s bad exactly.
Grin! Me too…
Very much! And there’s a “trapped” sense, as if this is a doom you can’t escape. “Oh, my God, there must be something I could be doing!”
It’s absurd, of course, because almost certainly there is something we could be doing. We just…don’t feel like it.
(“Okay, sort my socks in order of skunkiness…or post on the SDMB?”)