Boy, Am I Bored

“Can we go somewhere?” He’s 14, but it could just as easily be 12 or 16, maybe even 10. Or it could be her at any of those ages. “Where do you want to go?” “Anywhere, let’s just go somewhere. There’s nothing to do around here. I’m bored.” I can feel it coming, but there’s nothing I can do but join in and play this game. “Why don’t you read a book? “I’ve read all the ones I like.” “Watch TV? There are only a hundred or so channels. Surely there’s something on that’s good.” “No, I looked at the guide. They’re all boring.” “Watch a movie?” “Seen them all a hundred times.” “Get on the internet.” Not always a good suggestion, but I can already see where this is going. “There’s nothing there I want to see. You have all the good sites blocked.” “Play a video game?” There are at least three platforms, and dozens of games for each. “Played them all. Beat them all. Bored with them all.” “How about your DS?” “Those games are all sissy games, and anyway I’ve beat them.” “I guess your iPod Touch is out of the question.” “I’m out of money on iTunes, and I’ve played all the games I can download. Nobody is around to text, there are all out doing stuff.” “What kind of stuff?” “I don’t know, just stuff. Fun stuff.” “Why not shoot some baskets?” “No.” “Ride your bike?” “Flat tire.” “Go for a walk?” “Been everywhere, seen everything, done it all.” “I guess you could help me with the chores.” No verbal response, just eye-roll and incredulous look. “Or maybe you could wash the car.” Another of the same, this time over the shoulder as he walks away. “Does this mean no?” The same response again, over a slumping, boneless shoulder, the surest sign of abject boredom and disgust at having to stay home all day and all night. At this point I have only two choices (really three, but throwing rocks at a child is frowned upon in some cultures, ours being one of them). I can sacrifice my day to search for meaningful “fun”, a search doomed to failure from the start. I mean, if none of the twelve offerings above are worth a try, what would make me think anything I could drive him to, or procure for him would be any better? Or I could make the situation worse, which I almost invariably choose. This time is no different. “I don’t believe in boredom. I think it’s just a lack of imagination.” That’s sure to get a glare, and thereby justifiable. “You have everything in the world to do right here. What is it you really want?” “I don’t know. I’m just bored.” So here we have it. The speech has to come out. If I don’t recite it on purpose I’ll no doubt go into a dissociative trance and pump it out of my subconscious. “When I was your age I never got bored. There wasn’t satellite TV or computers, and I was in my 20s with a family when the first video game was invented. You had to go to a movie on Saturday to see one, and then there wasn’t a choice. We didn’t have a telephone in the house, and the nearest neighbor my age was 4 miles away. I did ride over there on my bike a lot, though. There was all kinds of stuff to see and do, and if I did find myself with nothing that excited me, I could always read the encyclopedia. One summer I got all the way to the “D’s”. Of course I had to shout the last half, because I had lost my audience. He had slumped off somewhere to wallow in boredom, blaming me for being the fun-sucker I am. Ever happen to you? Don’t lie. It’s happened to all of us with progeny. Ever think about why? There has to be a reason, even if it turns out to be some form of contagion spread by puberty. Who’s really to blame? I’ll throw together a list of possibilities. It won’t be all-inclusive, just those things I can think of. Add some more and text me. Or email me. Or tweet. Or put them on face-book. My-space? Skype? Even (if you are hopelessly out of touch) call me. I should probably set the record straight. I got bored, too. I remember days that seemed to stretch out to infinity, and I could come up with nothing that sounded exciting to do. My choices were fewer then than his now, but my vista was narrower then, too. I could read, run, walk, play ball, solitaire, fish, bicycle, or just fool around. That doesn’t sound like a lot of choices by today’s standards, but it made for a full life for those times, and I wouldn’t trade then for now. The point is that no matter what is available, sometimes nothing satisfies. I don’t remember it lasting for hours or days or longer, but I remember occasionally thinking that I had a lot of time on my hands and not one thing to fill it with. What’s a body to do? This is where imagination comes in. It’s downright ugly of me to disparage a teen’s (or anyone’s) imagination. That’s just one of my failures. For the life of me, I can’t recall curing mind-numbing periods of boredom with bursts of genius, inspiration, or imagination. But something must have happened or I would still be shuffling around, grumping and grumbling and asking to be entertained. And the same will happen to him – and her. The wrong thing for me (or you) to do is to jump up and start trying to please. I get the image of “how do you like this? How about this? Maybe in a different color? Size?” in a futile effort to find a match between what he wants and what I can offer. That’s a non-starter. It calls to mind a friend’s boss who was fond of saying, “I don’t know what I want but I’ll know it when I see it - and that’s not it.”