Underwhelmed

Sometimes I catch myself sitting with people and feeling a bit underwhelmed. I get that they’re fun to be around, but a lot of the stuff they talk about feels kind of meh. You know the usual: the person we’re attracted to, the game we might buy, the club we might hit over the weekend, the minor gossip… all surface-level stuff.

It gets frustrating because you feel like there’s so much better topics to converse about. If only they leaned into bigger ideas, questioned themselves a bit more, talked about things that actually matter, they could be doing a lot more with their time. But most of the time, the topics just don’t go there.

People stick to what’s easy, what feels good in the moment, what gives them a quick hit of attention or approval. A lot of the time, they like to have conversations based on what they feel would be approved by everyone else. Rarely do conversations make you stop and think, or leave you feeling like someone actually said something worth remembering.

Sometimes you even try putting people on game, dropping a thought, sharing a perspective, having a conversation that could actually get them thinking. And then you end up feeling like the elephant in the room. “Hear my man” or “You sound mad.” It’s funny but also kind of frustrating, because it shows how rare it is to find someone willing to actually listen and take in something different.

And that’s when you notice how much of your life is just small talk, repetition, entertainment, distraction. Most people float in the shallow end, comfortable with what everyone else considers normal, chasing little thrills, gossip, date life, and jokes. It makes you aware of the environment you’re in, the kind of conversations you’re settling for, and sometimes you can’t help but step back and think, “man, there’s gotta be more to talk about than this shit all the time.”