Who’s To Say You’re Boring? | A Talk About Habits, Self – Esteem and the Wonders of Social Media

I have always considered myself to be boring. For the majority of my life, I have been a (fairly) quiet, studious person who likes my own company. I enjoy reading, as you know, and staying indoors – like any stereotypical introvert would be proud to share.

As I explained in a recent post, where I come from that’s not really the stereotypical habits for someone my age. In a city like mine it’s expected that there’ll be lots of social events, drinking and generally just being pretty adventurous.

There’s been so many times that I’ve wished I was that person and on many occasions I’ve tried so hard to be her. I went through a period in my late teens of experimenting with who I was, what I liked and the friends I held close. And although I’m grateful for this time, because it’s taught me some valuable lessons, when I look back now I just see me desperately trying to be something I’m not.

Now there’s totally no shame if being a party person is your thing – you do you and all that – but today I wanted to talk about the other side of us all, the side that you’ve never really seen publicly until now.

The side that you too have maybe been trying to push aside.

BORING HABITS

boring

adjective

‘not interesting; tedious’

As I said, when I was growing up I thought I was the most boring person in the entire world. I had a close-knit but not large group of friends and, unlike seemingly everyone else, we didn’t go out together all the time. I’ve always spent a lot of time with my family, at home and I thought that was so tragic.

Flash forward to university where I started meeting new people and we swapped stories about growing up. ‘Never Have I Ever’ was a game I dreaded because I never had anything to say – I hadn’t done anything that would appear scandalous or make a good story. 

I started to resent myself and my past decisions because I wasn’t like everyone else. I thought I was boring.

LIFE IS JUST A CLASSROOM

A major issue for me is the fact I still think I’m in secondary school sometimes. I expect people to treat me the same way I was treated back then.

At school I was a geek, a nerd, a teachers’ pet – call it what you want I was one of those kids. And I always have been; it’s just my nature. If you’ve ever seen any teenage movie then you know these kids are the boring ones. The only time they become interesting is if they have a makeover and get noticed by the popular kids.

But being a geek isn’t a bad thing. In fact, as I get older I’m starting to see it as a good thing! I’m starting to see that it’s not as rare as I thought and everyone is a little bit geeky in adulthood. It’s what makes us interesting.

Being excited about something that means a lot to you should never be a shameful experience. If you love science-fiction, for example, then you should love it wholeheartedly. Let yourself be excited about that new book, movie, convention or whatever it is. There is nothing wrong with that! Let’s face it, in this current climate we need a bit of excitement and joy.

THE WONDERS OF SOCIAL MEDIA / THE CLEANING REVOLUTION

There’s a particular influencer going around at the moment who is getting everyone excited about cleaning. You know exactly who I’m talking about, and if you don’t have a cheeky Google – I’ll bet you’ll get sucked in too.

But yeah, cleaning is now a popular topic and people are genuinely getting excited by detergents, powders and scrubbers the same way, a few months ago, they’d be getting excited about a new makeup palette or a celebrity baby. And it makes my heart so happy!

Who knew, eh?

Cleaning seems like such a basic, boring thing. It’s such an old stereotype and yet here we are in 2018 getting excited about it. The same can go for books too. Have you ever seen  booktube? There’s a whole online community dedicated to reading, finding new stories, authors and generally just being excited about words – and it’s amazing!

All these quiet hobbies are taking up space online and connecting people. After years of only ever seeing the highlights of others lives, like when they’re going out for cocktails in their best dress or when they’re at some amazing event, we’re now getting to see the small everyday tasks that we all participate in.

I think that’s the absolute best thing that could ever come from social media – the communities. Literally no matter what makes you happy, there’s an online place for you! Whatever quirky, geeky, funny little hobby you adore there’s thousands of people online loving the same thing and encouraging you to join in.

So please don’t push away that part of yourself. It’s these little things that make us who we are and now we’re finally getting to a time where everyone can be involved.

From one nerd to another, keep doing you.

Speak soon,

Rachael.