Stepping Out Into the New Boring
They say it's going to be a wild summer, and I think that's great for everyone else.
I haven’t written much lately, mostly because I have been pretty boring. I think boring has gotten a little too underrated. No matter how much I have in common with someone I match with on OkCupid, we always differ on the “Would you rather be weird or normal?” question. My answer is normal, and every single woman with whom I have ever matched has answered “weird.” Nowadays, the implication is that normal means boring and weird means interesting. Which I am 100 percent okay with.
I am 27 years old, and my sister and I recently discussed my desire to enter the boring phase of my life a little earlier than I had previously planned. Maybe that is due to COVID-19, but maybe COVID-19 just gave me an opportunity to realize that the true me preferred boring all along. I think that if I were to find someone on OkCupid to go ahead and settle down with, it would be beneficial for at least one of us to be boring. Grounded in all the boring elements of reality. I don’t mean to communicate that I’m good with finances or logistics or anything like that. Because I’m not. I really just mean the being boring part. Whenever people start talking about the new normal, I start fantasizing about the new boring. What ways of being delightfully boring am I going to discover as the world reopens? What are those unique spaces that I will once again be able to peruse silently while thinking about pretty much nothing? I used to like weird girls. Now I just want another boring person to step out into the new boring with.
A lot of people have accused my generation as a whole of being boring, which we absolutely are. I just don’t think that’s as bad as they say. Let us be boring. What do you care? I, for one, have grown to appreciate the fact that the eyes of many people my age have permanently glazed over. I like that looking up the menu before getting to the restaurant is now considered a personality trait. I would love to make some new friends this summer, but I’m not sure how interesting I want those people to be. And coming off a 15-month break from most social life, I’m not sure I could impress a weird girl even if I wanted to.
There’s a peacefulness to being a complete bore. I have grown to appreciate that peace. The peace of dropping my gym membership in favor of a home gym, and then not even coming close to building out a home gym. I’ve had 14 months and just never got around to it. My upper body is, well, pretty boring right now. Not pathetic. But nothing to write home about. Certainly nothing that would impress a weird girl. A nice boring girl might like it, though.
I do plan to get nice and tan over the next few weeks. It’s that time. Time to go simmer in the sun with all the other raw chickens in this town. I always got a kick out of that last summer, my first summer in New York. Sunbathing, then turning my head to see all the other white bodies, glistening with sweat. Raw chickens, as far as the eye can see, that same shot they’d put in the news to make people look less socially distanced than they actually were. Raw chickens, thousands of them, probably. Some weird, some normal. All of them about to be burned.
It’s arguably the best boring activity, sunbathing. The point is to do nothing. It’s taking a bath without the strenuous work of drawing a bath. It’s also one of the most inappropriate times to walk up to a stranger in the park. But if I approached a hundred fellow sunbathers and asked if their summer plans are “weird” or “normal,” what would the poll results be? The various “New York’s Summer of Hedonism” headlines suggest that weirdness would win out. I think that’s great for everyone else. But for me, it’ll be the Summer of Boring. The Summer of My Upper Body Is Fine. The Summer of I Don’t Need To Look Up The Menu, The #1 Is By Far Their Best And Most Reliable Sandwich. That’s the summer I’ll be leaning into. I wonder if I’ll find a nice boring girl who agrees.