What makes a boring conversation boring?
Can you remember the last time you caught yourself thinking “Oh my, I have absolutely no interest in this conversation”? What made that conversation boring? What makes any boring conversation boring?
Boring conversations don’t feel like dialogue, they are more like listening to a terribly long advertisement for a product you are not remotely interested in. The person talking to you (or at you?) is so caught up in sharing information that they don’t look for hints of your interest. They don’t notice when they lose you.
I’m convinced that no conversation is inherently boring but conversations do become boring. The time it takes for a conversation to become boring is defined by how interesting it is plus a small-talk grace period.
The small-talk grace period is the amount of time you are willing to suffer talking about the weather or some other uninteresting topic. Every conversation has this grace period and it will change based on who you are talking to (e.g. someone with a history of boring chats will likely get less time).
Interestingness depends on the topic and delivery. It takes longer for a conversation to become boring the more interesting and the better the delivery. (e.g. a well delivered but uninteresting topic should need roughly as much time a very interesting but poorly delivered one to become boring).
Because of the small-talk grace period and with some minor effort you should be able to not bore people for some time. To measure that time or know when time’s up you need to know how to read people. Turns out that not everyone is great at it.
What makes a boring conversation boring? Not reading the room.
