It comes dangerously close to conflating knowing a lot, reading a lot, or having thoughtful things to say with moral goodness.
Take note however, that life is generally short, and stakes of friendship are high. Interesting, knowledgeable personality is not equal with moral goodness, but it strongly correlates with at least, being more beneficial than harmful. It also strongly correlates with open-mindedness, and usually with empathy (since, part of empathy is being able to emulate the thought processes of another person within your mind, to guess their possible reactions, and that takes raw intelligence).
Or to put it differently: Interesting Friends are more likely to be Good Friends than Bad Friends. Non-Interesting Friends are slightly more likely to be Bad Friends, or that you would be a Bad Friend to them out of boredom.
So, given that we are unlikely to be able to acquire dozens upon dozens of friends to test, or invest equally in everybody around us, it makes more sense to invest in Interesting Friends, then test them for things like conscientiousness, ethics and open-mindedness.
(Note: we should also consider neurodiversity issues. An Interesting Friend is significantly more valuable to a person with ADHD. A perfectly morally upright and open-minded Friend who is nevertheless Boring, would make an ADHD person claw their own brain out in frustration. TO put it differently, people’s tolerance of Non-Interesting/Boring people range from “eh, he’s alright” to “hanging out with them is a Cruel and Unusual Punishment”.)
i’d love for anyone to present the argument against this. eq says it’s things like karaoke which make friendships great. the friends i know who are eager to do karaoke are the same ones who will start wild, speculative conversation when we’re idly sitting in the living room together. they’re the interesting people.
the people in my life whom, come the first lull in smalltalk after dinner get uncomfortable and declare “great meal, time to go” instead of opening themselves up for those late-night intimate conversations, are the same people who would turn down an invitation to karaoke.
interesting friends are fun friends. “boring” is the opposite of both “fun” and “interesting”. so if the latter two mean something different to the author than to me, perhaps we agree by saying “build non-boring friendships”?
my hunch is that we naturally segregate into monkeyspheres where certain definitions of interesting basically equal fun for everyone involved, and the Boring people are basically strangers, breaking the flow. Moreover, humans are not that different, we tend to be interested in similar things, and tend to be bored with similar things, at least broadly speaking.
What I think OP is trying to tell us, is that we should not over-focus on superficially fascinating snobs, who talk good game but aren’t good friends, but I think most people actually know that; we treat our brief interaction with Superficially Interesting People the same way we treat chocolate, wine or weed: its fun to have a little every now and then, but we’re not building our lifestyle around it.
Take note however, that life is generally short, and stakes of friendship are high. Interesting, knowledgeable personality is not equal with moral goodness, but it strongly correlates with at least, being more beneficial than harmful. It also strongly correlates with open-mindedness, and usually with empathy (since, part of empathy is being able to emulate the thought processes of another person within your mind, to guess their possible reactions, and that takes raw intelligence).
Or to put it differently: Interesting Friends are more likely to be Good Friends than Bad Friends. Non-Interesting Friends are slightly more likely to be Bad Friends, or that you would be a Bad Friend to them out of boredom.
So, given that we are unlikely to be able to acquire dozens upon dozens of friends to test, or invest equally in everybody around us, it makes more sense to invest in Interesting Friends, then test them for things like conscientiousness, ethics and open-mindedness.
(Note: we should also consider neurodiversity issues. An Interesting Friend is significantly more valuable to a person with ADHD. A perfectly morally upright and open-minded Friend who is nevertheless Boring, would make an ADHD person claw their own brain out in frustration. TO put it differently, people’s tolerance of Non-Interesting/Boring people range from “eh, he’s alright” to “hanging out with them is a Cruel and Unusual Punishment”.)
i’d love for anyone to present the argument against this. eq says it’s things like karaoke which make friendships great. the friends i know who are eager to do karaoke are the same ones who will start wild, speculative conversation when we’re idly sitting in the living room together. they’re the interesting people.
the people in my life whom, come the first lull in smalltalk after dinner get uncomfortable and declare “great meal, time to go” instead of opening themselves up for those late-night intimate conversations, are the same people who would turn down an invitation to karaoke.
interesting friends are fun friends. “boring” is the opposite of both “fun” and “interesting”. so if the latter two mean something different to the author than to me, perhaps we agree by saying “build non-boring friendships”?
I guess, as a first approximation, any unusual hobby selects for open-mindedness.
my hunch is that we naturally segregate into monkeyspheres where certain definitions of interesting basically equal fun for everyone involved, and the Boring people are basically strangers, breaking the flow. Moreover, humans are not that different, we tend to be interested in similar things, and tend to be bored with similar things, at least broadly speaking.
What I think OP is trying to tell us, is that we should not over-focus on superficially fascinating snobs, who talk good game but aren’t good friends, but I think most people actually know that; we treat our brief interaction with Superficially Interesting People the same way we treat chocolate, wine or weed: its fun to have a little every now and then, but we’re not building our lifestyle around it.