Usually, people give tips like "Do This" and "Do That".
So I want to take the opposite approach. I am giving 7 points on what makes someone boring - so you can become more interesting, by not doing these anymore.
“Imbalance”: When having a conversation, it is important to pay attention to balance. And by that I mean the ratio of talking and listening. Boring people tend to be on either side of the extreme. Either they only talk and don’t listen, or they only listen and don’t talk at all.
“Negative Egocentrism”: While talking, the most important to keep in mind is not to spend most of your talking time on topics you personally deem to be negative. Being negative and complaining, talking about one's problems and displaying disinterest in others can make your conversation partner gradually lose any interest in what you have to say. Of course this is also applicable on too much self-preoccupation in general.
“Banality”: The same goes for the depth of what you have to say. Talking about trivial or superficial things, being interested in only one topic, and repeating the same stories and jokes again and again makes people turn away.
“Low Affectivity”: When engaging with others, being enthusiastic about interacting with them is key to be interesting. Speaking in a monotonous voice, engaging in very little eye contact and generally behaving in a very unexpressive way will gesture that you have no interest in the conversation and neither will they after that.
“Passivity”: While maintaining strong opinions is not always the key to charm your conversation partner, having none at all is definitely worse in 99% of the situations. Having little to say, not having any opinions and being too predictable and conformist with what everyone else is saying just means that you don’t need to be included in the conversation at all. You would be deemed irrelevant.
“Low Value & Empty Words”: As we have established, making meaningful contributions to the conversation is important. Interesting people contribute more information to the conversation than boring people do. Boring people use more "empty words" and say more things that don't mean much. That can include vocal sounds but also meaningless phrases.
“Lack of Empathy”: Boring people can't tell if others are engaged in the conversation. And neither can they see things from the perspectives of others in general. This makes it extremely difficult to appear interesting to others because they just don’t adapt their communication to others’ needs. We have looked at seven factors that boring people display. But what can we take away from it? For the most part, just doing the opposite.
Bonus - Putting it into action:
“ACT CURIOUS” Are you curious? Act curious! Display interest. Express excitement about a mutual interest while keeping the conversation in balance.
“ATTENTION TO SOCIAL CUES”: Do you pay attention to social cues so you can figure out if it’s time to let the other person talk? If not, study them and start now. Feel yourself into the other person.
“TELL GOOD STORIES”: Do you have a set of stories that you can draw upon to lighten up the conversation? Over time, you learn which stories generate the most interest and enthusiasm.
“BE VALUABLE”: Talking about the weather just to keep the conversation going is a terrible idea. Don’t talk about banalities and use empty phrases but add meaning and value instead.