Nothing ventured nothing gained

I have a policy that I will try anything once.  It may be that the group or situation that you’ve been waiting for is just round the corner but you won’t know until you’ve given it at least in a nodding acquaintance.

Keynsham is a town about 10 miles from us, not the most exciting town on the planet, but who knows what is going once you dig beneath the surface

I attended as an experiment, a meeting of the Keynsham Writers Group which I was told had 7 members. It is to put it politely a long-established and mature group. I’m sorry to say I could not hear what the coordinator was saying. The group has been in existence for 20 years with its ups and downs.

I got to hear about the meeting through a local social media group so I joined in on time at 7:00 last night there was the coordinator and one other person who lived in Pembrokeshire who used to live in Bristol. Evidently other members not present were suffering various degrees of sickness.

We were joined 20 minutes in by a very senior lady in her 80s who popped in to read a poem which she duly did and then left again. I did not appreciate the fact that she just jumped in at without so much as a by your leave announced that she was going to read a poem.

The Policy of ZOOM

It is the policy of Zoom that you can use group chat free of charge but you have to sign on again every 40 minutes so this was very limiting for the meeting and very disruptive for me anyway. If these meetings have been going on for so long, I would have thought that an investment of £15 a month was not asking too much to allow us unlimited access to Zooms outstanding service.

We ended at 7:40 when someone was cut off halfway through reading a poem by the system.  The producer asked in a half hearted fashion if people wanted to carry on which by the way you do by logging in again but there was not a strong positive or indeed any response so the meeting ended abruptly.

I found the whole group not very dynamic or open. My observation over years is that when such a configuration is fixed in its ways the attitude they will take to a newcomer making suggestions is ‘take it or leave it’  so I think on balance I might leave it.

However what sparked my interest was the participant from Pembrokeshire who said that he was probably the most boring person in the world although he added that his friends tell him is he is interesting.

I was fascinated to see how deeply the idea of being a boring person was in his mind so I dug further. It seems that he has no friends on his wavelength. And yet later on he read us a poem that he wrote which was quite entertaining so here we have a fully functioning brain.

However it takes 2 to tango and this good man was suffering, quite simply, from a lack of stimulating conversation which we all need in order to keep our brain active

What makes people so boring?

This blog is dedicated therefore to ask the question what makes people boring? I can think of a number of factors including being negative.

When I make conversation with someone I don’t immediately want to hear a catalogue of all the wrong things that ever happened to them, how bad the government is though indeed it may be and how much the cost of living is going up. If that is at the forefront of people’s mind all the time what do their lives consist of?

We agreed at the meeting above that older people tend to repeat things often but I’m talking about repetitive thoughts normally when people are caught in the past. It makes a connection with current situations very difficult to achieve

I also like people to react when I say something by not staring at me like I’m from the planet Mars. I also like eye contact and animation of some sort. When I speak to someone I don’t appreciate their eyes shifting around the room to see what else is going on and  might be more interesting.

I also find self-centered people a bore and come to think of it I actually feel that’s the main thing I want to say.

When I speak I want my words to be processed and understood rather than just being a vehicle for the other person to get on their pet hobby horse and go on forever, sometimes talking about events of which I have no knowledge or know interest..

I also like people who take a stance on things and I don’t appreciate people who just agree with me just to be nice and indeed any sort of formula conversation switches me off in a New York second.

I am on my guard against people who tell stories of an unpleasant nature about others, the negative side of gossip, because they might do the same thing about me when I’m not there.

To summarize:

I enjoy people who are happy, they may be as mad as a Hatter but if they exhibit signs of happiness and animation it makes me want to talk to them. Having said that talk with people not at them or to them.

I don’t appreciate being lectured to or talked down to and I think the art of conversation which is the title of one of my websites to encourage conversation and communication sums it up.

On a deeper level it’s all about wavelengths which is about attitudes and faith and spirit and if you don’t find concomitance, what is the point of trying to raise the dead. They may be perfectly nice people. Well that’s great but if I can’t find a rapport with them then I would move on

Do I communicate better with people of my own age group? Not really, it’s the animation I need and if I meet a young teenager say about 18 who is not bothered about the obvious age difference then I will chat away with then if they want to talk. Some dads don’t bother to talk to their children very much so I like to be a sort of father or grandfather figure sometimes.