When did it become OK to be boring?

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[/audioplayer]I can remember back in the 1970s when a girlfriend of mine, sensing my lack of interest in her very long and very detailed analysis of the lyrics of Bob Dylan suddenly said, ‘Am I boring you?’

Of course she was. And of course I denied it. Why? Because it was a hurtful and embarrassing thing to say to someone. Back then to be seen as boring was the verbal equivalent of having bad breath or body odour.

But today no one worries about boring other people — or being branded a bore. I know this because my intelligent and amusing friends are quite happy to just chug along, talking and tweeting about the most mundane of matters. I never knew how fantastically boring my fascinating friends could be. And that’s because we once did our best to hide our boring bits from each other.