BORING!

“A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it” — Henry Ford

- SURESH SUBRAHMANYAN

It is widely accepted that while being overly aggressive, offensive or too clever by half is not an admirable personality trait, there can be no bigger pain than that of being a bore. Therein lies the rub. Bores can otherwise be pleasant to engage with, they may even be gifted in many ways. A handful of them have gone on to achieve great things in life but there is no guarantee that some of them, if you have had the misfortune to be buttonholed at the club bar or elsewhere, won’t turn out to be crashing bores. Particularly if their best days are behind them.

The thing about being ensnared by a bore is that you are never sure what’s coming. The conversation, or rather monologue, starts harmlessly. After five-six minutes, it dawns on you that you are trapped with no escape route. You have failed to get a word in edgeways and your mind is beginning to wander. Your eyes glaze and you keep looking frequently at your watch, which the bore ignores with impunity. You respond with an ‘Oh,’ ‘Ah,’ or ‘I see,’ not having the faintest what the bore is on about. The modern-day response is to feign a yawn and say, ‘Boring’ and walk away. Alas, we were brought up to be civil.”