▲ 9 points

Ask HN: How do you respond to people who tell you they are bored?

by oxplot·11y ago·9 comments·view on hn ↗

I know a non-trival number of people who once in a while tell me they're bored. Unfortunately I never relate to these people. I always find something to do, now and always, anywhere in any situation. So when I come across these folks, I really don't know how to respond in a constructive way. I've told them what they could be doing in the past but that seems to be a temporary fix at best.

Kids who tell me they're bored really make my head explode!

So HN, what would be a good constructive response to "I'm bored"?

9 comments

I believe your main issue with understanding these things is that you're conflating (absence of) workload and boredom. Boredom stems from not having anything that engages a person in a positive way. For example, I can be drowning in work and still be bored out of my mind, even while working. The work being done is perceived as being tedious, rote and without positive emotional impact.

That being said, finding something "fun" to do for a bored person is no easy task. And sometimes nothing seems appealing to the bored person. You can try dragging them along, so that they'll get engaged in the process of doing something, but there's no guarantee that this will work. Sometimes people just need to be bored, I guess.

The following was taught to me by my dear friend, Reginia. If it worked on someone as stubborn as I am, it will work on anyone.

Just tell them this:

  When you say, "I'm bored," you're actually saying, "I'm boring."

Essentially, bored people are boring, and boring people are bored.

Surprisingly, it's entirely true. It also works in reverse; interesting people are interested, and interested people are interesting. Fascinating people are fascinated, and fascinated people are fascinating.

Let's play a fun game of "Spot the logical fallacies!"

> If it worked on someone as stubborn as I am, it will work on anyone.

Hasty generalization

> When you say, "I'm bored," you're actually saying, "I'm boring."

Ad hominem

> ...and boring people are bored.

Affirming the consequent

> Surprisingly, it's entirely true.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam

> It also works in reverse

Circular reasoning

As far as I am aware there are millions of people interested in and fascinated with e.g. Justin Bieber. Are they all fascinating?

Yes, the Bieber fans are more fascinating/interesting to each other because they share common ground.

When people share a mutual interest or fascination, they tend to be more interested in and/or fascinated with each other, at least when compared those with which they have no (known) mutually shared interest or fascination.

If you refuse to be interested in or fascinated with anything, and insist on being bored by everything, then you have isolated yourself by preventing any common ground with anyone. By deciding to be bored, you've made yourself boring to others, and oddly, you've also made yourself boring to yourself.

If someone tells you they're bored they're usually looking for help making a decision about something or permission to do something.

Bored is a state of indecisiveness - no one wants to do something they might feel isn't enjoyable or useful, so being in a state of boredom is a function of not being able decide on something to do, or not being able to think of something to do (although that's much more unusual). The simplest solution is to incentivize a particular action and change the situation to make something more worthwhile than all the other things. To do that you need some knowledge of what motivates the person though, and some power to make the change.

It's worth noting that sometimes being bored is a perfectly correct state to be in. Occasionally I'm 'bored' in the middle of a large project. That's a sign that there are things I've yet to form a cohesive strategy for. 'Bored' in that case is actually shorthand for 'need some downtime to think'.

Totally agree overall. In general bordom to me is usually a state of indecisiveness for most people. And there are those who just can't figure out what to do next. In some cases I think it can also be a sign of depression too, not that I am an expert there, just something I feel I have seen personally many times.

I have major issues with the phrase "I can't". I raised my kids to never say "I can't...." because to me that is saying you failed before you even tried. Trying and failing is better then never trying to begin with. I am ok with failure and with "I need help on xyz", but not "I can't". To me "I'm bored" is in that same boat.

Ask them questions - try to dig in to why they are bored and find threads of things that interest them.

I'd say the holy grail is incepting interest ;-)