Avoid Boring People: How to Be Interesting
The sense I get of young kids these days is that they are incredibly risk averse. They don’t travel, they do what everyone else is doing. They optimize for optionality and yet don’t do anything original. What got me thinking about this was a Tweet I saw: https://x.com/mageeclegg/status/1992957732991721888
“I got a friend in San Francisco…
She says she went on 10 dates this year… Every guy was the same: • Software engineer • Patagonia vest • Mountain-biking addiction • Talks AI, crypto, and “safe long-term index investing” • Thinks Donald Trump is ruining the world.”
This is the case in NYC with Finance bros. Los Angeles with the Hollywood bros. People who literally are exactly alike in their ecosystem. But Magee the author of the tweet has a recommendation.
“Don’t be this guy. If you’re this unoriginal and want to change that…
Here’s what you should do before your next date:
• Take the Trans-Siberian Express from Ulaanbaatar to Moscow… drink warm vodka, eat pickles straight from the jar, and arm-wrestle Russians who size you up like an enemy agent.
• Fly to Buenos Aires… eat steak, drink Malbec, dance tango, and don’t come home until you’ve learned Spanish in a woman’s bed.
• Hike the cliffs of Cinque Terre… swim at sunrise and drink rough wine with old fishermen who’ve outlived storms and stories you can’t imagine.
• Take a train from India’s southern tip to Varanasi… stand on the ghats at dawn as bodies burn on the Ganges and feel the heat of a world older than anything you’ve known.
Go live a life worth living…
There’s so much out there waiting to shape you. And one day you’ll find yourself sitting across from a beautiful woman… and you won’t be digging through your mind for something interesting to say. You’ll simply be interesting.”
I’d add, join the French or Ukrainian Foreign Legion. Take Muay Thai fight training in Thailand. Walk the Kumano Kodo trail in Japan and El Camino de Santiago Walk. Ride a motorbike across South America. Join the “Centurion Club” which is someone who visits 100 countries in the world. Have random and obscure hobbies. Collect and read old books. Lots of them.
Basically do something unique. Follow your curiosity. Be original. Be interesting. Live.