The question
My friend and I have been "best friends" since we were pre-teens, giggling about sour celebrity crushes. Now, in our 40s, we are very different people. We have little in common other than having known each other forever. We have remained good friends, largely because of her persistence. She is loyal and kind, and has always been there for me. The problem is: she's also – it pains me to say it – a terrible bore. She insists we get together every week; sometimes I am honestly too busy, and sometimes I make up an excuse, but when that doesn't work, I end up listening to her gabble on about her own interests (which I do not share), often for hours. It's been this way for years. I don't want to hurt her or lose her friendship, but I dread spending time with her. What can I do?
The answer
I find boring people very interesting. So before we get to the advice proper, a few words about them:
I think it's important to distinguish between people who are temporarily dull and all-out, dyed-in-the-wool, corner-you-by-the-canapes-and-talk-at-you-with-crumbs-in-their-beard professional bores.
Anyone can be dull. Oscar Wilde's contemporaries say his plays were only a pale reflection of his brilliant conversation. People would pause with their forks halfway to their mouths, his soliloquies were so scintillating.
But one time, he missed a train back to London, and had to return to the country house where he had dazzled over dinner the night before. And he was spent. Boring! His host described him on that occasion (rudely, if you ask me) as "like a burned-out volcano."
Among my own contemporaries, I've noticed otherwise interesting people can be boring for weeks, months, even years – often when they're undergoing renovations, or have small children.
A friend of mine recently went away for a weekend with a bunch of new parents, and it turned out to be a 48-hour talkathon about baby-related topics. He described the experience as "brutal," and seemed to come away feeling a) an injustice had been done him, b) he was owed some sort of far-fetched divine restitution: He kept muttering something about "getting that weekend back" – as if that were even possible.
We must forgive those who are going through a boring phase and wait patiently for their former interesting selves to return.
But some people are simply boring.
They have a few identifying traits. For one, they're oblivious to body language. You could be literally dancing from foot to foot, and trying to edge past them and bolt for the exit, they keep droning on and on.
And they don't listen. I have a pet theory (no science to back it up, sorry) that there's a strong streak of narcissism in boring people. When all is said and done, they're not really interested in you or your stuff.
To put it another way, they talk at you, not to you.
Unfortunately, your friend sounds like one of these. And to be honest, I don't think there's much you can do to change this tiger's boring stripes.
I do have a couple of suggestions. If you are so bored by her, do you really have to have such long, drawn-out encounters? Why not be surgical with her? You "gotta go."
Here's another one. I'm going to be a little sexist here, so sorry. But I've noticed when women get together they love to download terabytes of incredibly detailed information on one another: how little Ricky likes his new geography teacher, and so on.
But when I get together with my male friends, it's a "vacation from information."
Exception: when one of us is having problems or going through some kind of trauma. But if there have been no particular developments, we communicate mostly in catchphrases, jokes and movie quotes.
And we like to do stuff, like play poker, or watch stuff, like sports. And the reason is because you can talk or not, as you choose. Long stretches of the poker game or hockey game will go by before anyone will say anything personal.
And I guess that's my main suggestion to you. Why not do some activity when you get together? Bike, hike, go to a movie, play darts, shoot pool – anything other than sit across a table from her, listening to her drone on into the afternoon.
But do you really want to keep her friendship? I don't know either of you well enough to pronounce on that, but when I hear, "I want to keep her friendship … but I dread spending time with her" and, "We have remained good friends, largely because of her persistence," it sets off alarm bells.
Maybe you need to ask the woman in the mirror whether it's time to ease out of this friendship.
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