11 Phrases Boring People Use Often, According To Psychology
Avoiding discomfort and challenges leads to a boring, unfulfilling, and unhappy routine.
Krakenimages.com | Shutterstock.com While our culture tends to demonize boredom in favor of a hustle mindset focused on excitement and productivity, there’s plenty of joy and intentionality that can come from living a “boring” lifestyle. While being occasionally bored can spark creativity, healthy habits, and reflection, as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Ashok Seshadri, MD, explains, it’s important to practice a balance — taking boring, personal, and peaceful time to yourself, while also engaging in challenging situations and making new thoughtful connections.
Especially in conversations — the gateway to new relationships and connections — ensuring you’re not using some of the phrases boring people use often can cultivate more thoughtful interactions that are filled with joy, excitement, and hope for the future. Yes, being boring can sometimes be beneficial, but when we adopt this mindset too wholeheartedly, we also miss out on experiences that lead to happier, more fulfilling lives.
Here are 11 phrases boring people use often, according to psychology
1. ‘Just saying’
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Many of the phrases boring people use often according to psychology revolve around an inability to truly and intentionally connect with others, sometimes due to the overwhelming nature of emotional turmoil or a general passiveness these people carry throughout their lives.
While it might not be intentional, a phrase like this can actively dismiss other people’s emotions and opinions, causing them to second guess themselves without explanation.
By not taking accountability for their words or foregoing additional conversation after a phrase like this, boring people sabotage opportunities for deeper connection with people in their lives. Even if it’s during a conflict or following an emotional outburst, find ways to ask thoughtful questions or seek compromise, rather than letting a conversation rigidly end with a phrase like this.
2. ‘It is what it is’
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Many people concerned with external validation or riddled with people-pleasing tendencies tend to forgo expressing strong opinions in conversation — more worried about painting themselves as a likable person than communicating their desires, needs, and perspectives. While strong opinions do sometimes present opportunities for divisiveness, sabotaging conversations with our innate desire to argue on opinions that reflect our sense of self, they also help to shape meaningful, thoughtful conversations with others.
Especially if we can find shared experiences and common ground with people who have different perspectives from our own, the power of having a strong opinion can fulfill us and our relationships. Boring people tend to steer clear of this active expression, instead opting for phrases like this that allow them to take a back seat in intense or emotionally charged conversations.
However, when we stand for nothing or try to appease everyone with superficial remarks and behaviors, we’re never really connecting with anyone. What a waste.
3. ‘There’s nothing to worry about’
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While a phrase like this can sometimes be empowering in a close relationship, helping to mediate anxiety or fear about a situation, it can also be dismissive when used in passive conversation. If someone is expressing an anxiety or fear they have to you, expecting support and empathy, but they receive this phrase in response, chances are they’re not going to feel heard and understood.
Boring people tend to struggle with putting themselves in other people’s shoes, foregoing experiences where they may learn to empathetically communicate with others, sabotaging their ability to truly connect with the people around them.
Coupled with a phrase like this that actively dismisses someone’s experience, a boring person may put themselves at a disadvantage for truly connecting with others, without even realizing it in the moment.
4. ‘This is hopeless’
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Stuck in the stagnancy of their own lives, boring people tend to bring an aura of helplessness and pessimism to their routines, relationships, and conversation. Rather than opting for challenging conversations, thoughtful discussions, or optimism in new situations, they use phrases like this to remove themselves from discomfort.
Boring people who are inherently afraid of change and challenge often miss out on fulfilling opportunities in their lives, confining themselves to an incredibly small comfort zone that urges them to reject growth.
Phrases like this not only isolate boring people from more eccentric, challenging, and productive people — specifically in the realm of relationships or personal development — they reaffirm their harmful ideas of lacking self-worth and insecurity.
5. ‘I don’t care’
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According to social psychologist Frank T. McAndrew, PhD, being a “boring” person is often characterized by stereotypes and negative behaviors that are unique to a person’s life experience.
From impassiveness to lacking curiosity, boring people tend to avoid depth in conversation and connections with people to promote their own stagnancy and comfort.
Many of the phrases boring people use revolve around a lack of opinions. They’re passive and cause other people to take on social burdens in conversations rather than asking thoughtful questions and finding ways to explore new topics.
6. ‘Are you listening?’
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Considering many boring people tend to engage in “unbalanced conversations” with an unhealthy mix of listening and talking, they struggle to know if other people are truly engaged with them. Often focused on exiting the conversation rather than indulging in more meaningful connection, boring people struggle to truly help other people feel heard and valued in passing interactions.
Marriage and family therapist Jennifer Litner argues that these kinds of one-sided and unbalanced conversations don’t always go away. Sometimes they manifest into one-sided relationships where both partners' needs go consistently unmet.
When we choose not to bring a thoughtful attitude into conversations, we don’t attract empathetic, loving, and intentional people into our lives, but rather, people who allow us to regress and remain in our comfort zones.
7. ‘I’m not comfortable with that’
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While setting boundaries and ensuring you’re advocating for yourself with a phrase like this is incredibly important to nurturing healthy relationships and your own emotional health, it can also promote feelings of stagnancy in people who overuse them in various situations.
For example, choosing not to meet a new person, go on a first date, or network with others to protect your own comfort — despite there being growth in challenge — may be sabotaging opportunities for their own happiness to flourish.
Boring people tend to steer away from the newness in life, focused on mediating their anxiety and fear with a sense of comfort that can be equally isolating and confining in social situations. Instead of falling victim to this stagnancy, find ways to subtly push yourself out of your comfort zone, even if it’s with a smile towards a stranger or a coffee date.
8. ‘You owe me’
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While selfishness is often plagued by negative stereotypes like narcissism, there are many benefits to advocating for your own needs and setting clear boundaries with your best interests in mind. However, many boring people with selfish tendencies, especially in conversations — not asking questions, talking only about themselves, or dismissing other’s opinions — tend to embody the isolating and unproductive experiences associated with selfishness.
Not only do they view the people in their lives as a vessel for their own comfort and security, they often expect people to put their own needs aside to provide for them.
Whether it’s a professional relationship or a more intimate one, they may use phrases like this to avoid taking accountability in their own lives, more comfortable with passing off emotional and social burdens to their inner circle than dealing with discomfort themselves.
9. ‘I’m fine’
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To keep up with their need for external validation, many boring people live their lives with a mask on, shielding themselves from the discomfort of emotional expression and vulnerability, even with close relationships in their lives.
A article published in the London Journal of Primary Care found that the messiness of vulnerability — filled with complex emotions, communication, and perspective — can spark feelings of anxiety and fear in people with low self-esteem. Rather than embracing these conversations and moments as a way to connect, boring people may actively avoid them to ensure they can keep up with their perceived image and avoid discomfort.
At the end of the day, the negative stereotypes associated with “being boring” often revolve around lacking intentionality. Even if you’re not seeking out excitement in every aspect of your life, find healthy moments where you can balance vulnerability, connection, and your own peace of mind.
10. ‘I don’t feel like it’
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While many of us are guided by goals, aspirations, and sometimes discomfort, boring people tend to live relatively predictable lives informed by their anxieties and fears. Instead of approaching new situations with an optimistic mindset — considering the benefits of challenges and discomfort — they actively avoid these things, whether it’s a conversation with someone they don’t know or a challenge they believe they’ll fail at.
They may appear empathetic or engaging, but at the heart, psychology expert Ronald E. Riggio, PhD, explains that they’re only trying to appease other people rather than be true to themselves.
Avoiding discomfort can be beneficial in passing moments, but to live your life constantly afraid of change and challenge only pigeonholes you into a stagnant, unfulfilled life.
11. ‘It’s not that deep’
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Either repeating the same things over and over or talking frequently about unimportant things, there are several phrases boring people use often to avoid vulnerability and deep conversations.
Equally dismissive and invalidating to the people in their lives committed to sharing their opinions and experiences, this anxiety around vulnerability not only causes boring people to suppress their emotions, but sabotages their chance at healthy relationships and connections.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.