The pretty young woman fidgeted in her seat at the tiny round table of the coffee bar I was enjoying my mocha latte and Cormac McCarthy novel at. It was mid-afternoon, the sun blazing through the picture-sized windows, cutting through the shadows of the dinky neighborhood coffee joint nearby my home. It was impossible to not eavesdrop on her cell phone converation. She  was incredibly annoying.  Anger flowed out of her like volcanic lava. It made for a tense atmosphere and I didn't like it one bit. I had stepped out of my busy household overflowing with teenager energy for a respite slice of quiet and reading peace.  But no, I have Miss He-Just-Broke-Up-With-Me  reliving every awful detail of the man who had left her standing in Traumaville. .I was about to give up in disgust and head to a nearby park for my quiet when her bitter tone suddenly became softer.

"He said I...," her voice trailed off as she tried to compose herself. I suddenly felt sorry for her. And curious. What did he say?  That she was too high-maintenance?  That she didn't match her E-Harmony profile? What? Why did this guy break up with this beautiful red-haired woman with skin to die for?

I pretended to be reading, but I was now fully engaged in her drama.

"He said...I. Was. Boring. Me? Boring? I'm not boring?  Why would he say that? I'm not boring....am I?" and with that admission came a quiet stream of tears as she listened to whatever voice of friendship was on the other line. No longer annoyed, I felt for her.  She had indeed been handed one of the most insidious let-downs a person can tell another person:  You are boring.

The idea that who we are is unengaging to another person can leave us feeling as if we are insignificant. If we are labeled boring, then we have become lumped together with other boring aspects of life, such as waiting in line at the grocery store.  To be told we are boring, to be rejected because we are perceived as boring and unindteresting, can create a shame about who we are.

I think the shame belongs to the one who is bored.

If we have become bored with someone in our lives, then it reveals more about our own effed-upness than it does about them. When we cannot discover the fascinating stories that are swirling around us then we are simply not paying attention.

Granted, some people, like the woman in the coffee bar, might have a clod of a partner who for lack of a specified explanation, falls back on "You're boring," as a catch-all word for break-ups. And I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to tell her, with all the motherly love that I could pass on to a total stranger in a coffee bar, "Honey, don't own that lie. There is no such thing as a boring human being."

I wonder if that guy of hers, as well as my own clueless self, fall prey to the idea that life with all of it's twists and turns, is supposed to be a purposeful adventure filled with excitement around every corner. As if we are in an action-packed movie. And indeed, some of us, the rare some of us, do find ourselves in such a story. Like soldiers. Or rock stars. Or bank robbers.

But most of us, most of the time, find ourselves in sleepy little tales of living one day at a time.  We are not heroes. We are not super-talented or super-anything.  We could be the one in the coffee shop sitting at the little table retelling the sin of being boring.

Life is not an entertainment center. People are not characters meant to thrill us. If I think about it some more, I  kinda think that those who are bored are really admitting that they are not being sufficiently distracted from  their own boring selves. They are not paying attention to their own storyline.

The young woman finally ended her phone call. She sat there quietly for a long time while I at long last found the spot of quiet I wanted for me and my book. The story gripped me as the plot thickened page after page. It was not a boring book.