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If there is one social anxiety that plagues many of us, it is the fear that other people might think we are boring.
We’d rather be thought of as almost anything else and, in fact, we may invest a good deal of resources to ensure we are sparkling conversationalists, able to capture the attention of others with our charm and charisma.
But what if we are not as witty and engaging as we think we are?
On average, 14 per cent of people report being bored at work because of a boring colleague.
Psychologist Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi once commented that ‘we’re all boring at one time or another, although some people are so chronically boring they’re held back socially and in their careers’.
Nobody wants to be that person. But what makes someone boring?
In the 1980s, researchers at Wake Forest University in North Carolina compiled a number of traits and characteristics that make people come across as boring.
Their main discovery was that we find people boring when we have to put too much effort into staying engaged in the conversation.
Boring people don’t always know they are boring (stock image)
It is not simply that they are talking about things that don’t interest us, but that they are doing so in a way that makes it hard for us to maintain our attention, follow what they are saying or make sense of it all.
The researchers identified various traits that can make it harder for people to keep the attention of the person they are talking to – and thus come across as boring.
These include:
Focusing too much on yourself
We all like to talk about ourselves – after all, it’s the topic we know the most about!
But boring people see themselves as the centre of every conversation and manage to turn everything back to their own experiences or opinions.
When someone else tells an anecdote, they immediately point out how this story reminds them of something that happened to them.
They often like to ‘better’ the original tale by pointing out how that event was nothing compared to what happened to them.
Talking about things that others find unengaging
Boring people may have niche interests that do not appeal to many others, and they may have nothing to add to more mainstream topics of conversation (such as popular TV shows or films, for example).
They may talk about their own interests excessively, or about minor events of little interest to others – long, rambling accounts about people unknown to the listener, or lengthy diatribes about specific incidents (like a hospital appointment) that hold no wider appeal.
Not showing enough emotion in conversation
Speaking in a flat, monotone manner, without any attempt to convey emotion – either through facial expressions or tone of voice – makes it harder for listeners to attend to your message.
They might become distracted by your lack of emotion, or might stop putting in the cognitive effort required to understand a message that is missing emotional nuances.
When we have to try hard to concentrate, we are likely to be easily distracted and struggle to focus – we identify this frustrating feeling as boredom.
Being too serious and taking things too seriously
Humour is a vital part of human interaction that helps us bond with each other, keeps us engaged and makes us happy. It is an antidote to boredom, so when someone doesn’t banter or joke, or if they misinterpret or squash our own attempts at injecting humour into the conversation, we feel bored.
Having a conversational style that is hard to follow
Some people appear to be unable to tell a story simply and clearly. Instead of going from A to B, they wander around haphazardly, constantly getting side-tracked.
Each new thought that pops into their head sets them off on a new tangent, so that they seem to stumble further and further away from the original point.
This random jumping from one topic to another leaves the listener struggling to follow their train of thought. And the harder it is for us to follow the conversation, the more likely we are to disengage and become bored.
- Extracted from How To Spot A Narcissist: Psychological Answers to Life’s Key Questions by Dr Sandi Mann, released August 20 2026, RRP £16.99
