Do you ever get bored of people?

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Do you ever get bored of people, like old friends?

I have been friends with a few people from school for many years. We meet once a year, but I always feel bored of the conversations. We don't have much common interests and I literally have to force myself to grumble about my life just to get along. I have grown intensely intolerant of the boredom and hypocrisy in recent years. But I can't shake the thought that it is wrong to cut off old friends. I want to tell my friends that I don't enjoy talking with them, that I always get bored with our conversations and meetups. But I don't know how to start.

Do you have a similar experience? What would you do if you were me?

I don't think you should tell your friends outright that you no longer enjoy spending time with them; it'll cause hard feelings. Rather, you should become progressively "unavailable" when they extend an invitation. They'll get the hint eventually. Old friendships die all the time through benign (and/or intentional) neglect.

It's harder with individual friends, though, I think. I have a friend like your friend group. We've known each other for almost ten years now, and see each other maybe once or twice a year, which he always initiates. He's a nice guy, but we just don't have anything in common anymore, and we haven't for years. Most people will get the hint if you repeatedly postpone or somehow just don't have a single free weekend to visit for months on end, but... I suppose at some point, I'll have to tell him out right, but damn if I don't want to have that conversation.

People get bored with other people all the time.

Telling them that would be stupid, though.

The boredom is very rarely permanent.

Yes, I get bored of a lot of people in my life at the moment. I find myself surrounded by a lot of acquaintance-level "friends" in recent times, and the nature of that is that we really don't have all that much in common. So when these people chat to me, I notice that they repeat the same stuff as if they've forgotten that we've already spoken about that topic or piece of information. It's frustrating because nothing really gets established, like ok we know we've covered that, lets cover more, new stuff.

One friend, whenever animal topics come up, says "Well we've got x number of cats" -- yes I KNOW you do, you've told me that every time we speak, like it's a brand new revelation. He really does say a lot of stuff as if he truly believes it's the first time he's told me. It's frustrating because nothing in our friendship actually "moves along" if you will. It's like we go over the same basic ground in terms of information about ourselves.

Another person: I think we have had the same conversation about a certain size of food item and which shop carries it, about FIVE TIMES now.

I want to talk about deeper things. We never get past mindless repetitions and discussions about stupid things we've already established. If he asks about that larger bag ONE more time and says the same things in response to my response, I think I will kill myself.

I have no friendships that are actually fulfilling and move forward through knowledge of each other or our lives, or to deeper, actually important issues.

I've got bored of just about everyone I've ever known.
I had a similar situation to yours going on in the years after highschool. My "friends" (aka people who ate lunch in the same space as me) wanted to keep the "connection" up after school finished. We had nothing in common but school, and afterwards was just a waste of time.
Luckily I moved out of town and just started to be consistently unavailable for meetups. They started to get angry at me for not being able to go out with ten minutes notice even though they knew I then lived five hours away.
It just faded out, and eventually I changed my phone number and never gave it to them. I didn't think it worth continuing if they were not people who engaged me.

Y'know, sometimes what you write I could have written myself. I don't have friends, but I have this exact same scenario with a relative. It's the same conversation. Every week. For decades. I literally found out the other day that her complaints about her neighbours have been repeated, like clockwork, every week for five years now.
I have heard all the stories and anecdotes. But it's just repeat repeat repeat.
I've started to have to say "yes I know, you've told me this," every time she does it to save my own sanity. I cannot hear that same comment repeated yet again as if I haven't heard it a trillion times before and pretend it's anything new.
Which makes no sense really - surely these repeaters are still people, with new thoughts, ideas and experiences coming into their minds. Why is it just the same thing, ad nauseum?
As for deeper topics - not likely. They're anti / phobe everything, and I'm "secretive."

That's exactly what I wonder! Surely they are having newer thoughts and newer experiences happening in whatever interim between that last time we talked and the current conversation -- I certainly do! Yet these people just repeat the same things. It's baffling and disappointing.

^ I know. Even if they have boring lives, like this relative, they must have had at least one new idea since the previous week. And what's more, when I try to discuss a new topic - even a philosophical one where one can think and create an opinion - she won't engage with it and instead just starts repeating the same conversations. Won't even think about anything new, even if I serve it up.
Incidentally -

What would you find fulfilling to discuss with a friend? What deeper issues would you prefer to discuss?

Well there's quite a range -- it can be anything from simply finding out additional factual things about each other, all the way to finding topics, issues and interests to discuss and explore together.

And example of the first type would be things like knowing more than just the basic information, but other facts that could give insight to a person and even show that the two of us have something in common, such as hobbies, previous jobs, places they've traveled etc.

There is this one person I've now known for six years -- and he only just revealed to me that he can play the piano and wanted to score films! I've shared with him for years that I was a musician and used to play gigs etc. . . . but he never once shared with me that he plays music too. I had NO idea he was musical too; he stayed completely silent on that fact. I can't understand why he kept that from me, as it's something we would have in common and created another talking point that would mean something to both of us to talk about. I'm baffled by that. It's not like I would have been all over it, asking to jam, as I also mentioned that I don't play anymore. He could have just said "Yeah I play a bit of piano, I do enjoy it" and then we could have had whole conversations about making music. Instead our conversations have been limited, repetitive and boring.

I have other friends too, who seem to stay stuck on an acquaintance level because there are no incremental revealings of further information, the way I've gathered is the normal pattern of people getting to know each other better. When I try to start the ball rolling with some extra info of my own, it's not usually reciprocated. I've largely given up anyway.

The second example would be just to take topics that matter to us and talk more in-depth about them, but instead they don't raise anything but the same issues, and when I raise something else it again fails to really push open any boundaries.

On the other hand, perhaps for me it's just as well that these people don't open up to getting closer this way as they already take up too much of my hobby time in the chats we already have. Although, having said that, perhaps I wouldn't be so annoyed by that existing chat time if it did indeed have more substance than the same old shallow stuff.

Sometimes, if they're superficial or gossipy. On the whole, though, being out there around people isn't as boring as sitting at home doing nothing. I like my "down time," but I enjoy my active life, too.

Yes, a lot. I have to fake enthusiasm when talking to most people.

In defense of those repeaters, I would say that the reason they repeat already established information is because they already know the outcome of such conversations. Therefore avoiding having to divulge new information that will only make their drifting away from you more obvious. It's basically taking the conversation to a time when you could still connect with each other. Which I consider a waste of time and effort even though I'm guilty of such thing. But I only repeat when my usual response of "same as usual " fails. Either repeat already established knowledge or talk about my interest which I doubt people will be interested in. So... the idea of repeaters wanting an actual real time connection is( to me at least) completely rubbish.

Yes. I have a small time frame I can handle interaction, even online. I made a youtube channel, specifically because I needed to have some positive interaction in the world. My neighbors were giving me a lot of negative interaction. I was feeling all the negativity & fixed it with positive interaction online -- the bad neighbor behavior became less important & I can ignore them much easier when I have positive balance. 2.5 yrs later I'm interacting less online because am taking more college classes, & I have positive interaction there -- don't need it online right now. Will go back to making videos more often when the semester ends. It is too difficult to keep up with both. Interacting is work. I am only posting here now because I've had 2 days of isolation & feel energetic enough to comment on a forum, but not so much to post a new video.

For me, there is not much room between boring and scary people. Most of them seem preoccupied with useless trivia while living through a period of history that will be written in the rocks. I don't know if a Pokeman is animal, vegetable or mineral, but I'm pretty sure it won't matter in a hundred years. As for people with elaborate plans for dealing with zombies, but none regarding their own health, I just don't know where to start. I've never owned a TV.

"Small minds discuss people. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas." - Eleanor Roosevelt

You know what. I can no longer remember the last time I've had an idea or heard a new idea from someone else. hmmmnnn...the world must be running out of ideas.

Totally, that’s me. The problem is I am rarely interested in anything anyone else is. It’s all usually small stuff, small talk, talking for the sake of it.

Shakespeare didn't create original plays; he added his own unique twist to existing plays.

Same with ideas. Unique twists to existing ideas can be created, even if the idea is old.