I’ve never really understood people who say they’re bored. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Vermont. As a kid, summer came with two basic choices: Help my mother in her massive garden. Or get the hell out of the house and figure something out. So I figured things out.
Years later, when I lived in Boston, I apparently never outgrew that habit. If I had an hour for lunch, I didn’t need a plan. I could wander through Boston Common, walk toward Quincy Market, watch the tourists, look at the swan boats, and generally see what happened. And occasionally, I would make something happen. One of my favorite stupid little games was sneaking into someone's group photograph. Not dramatically. Just at the last possible second. Smile. Click. Run. Disappear. Sometimes I’d even put my arm around somebody.
The best part wasn't the picture.It was imagining the conversation later. “Who was that guy?” “What guy?” “The guy standing next to you.” “I thought you knew him.” “No!” “Oh... damn."
I also once thought about how funny it would be to stand at a crowded airport arrival gate holding a sign that said: I MISSED YOU, DADDY. Then, when some completely innocent guy walked through the doors with his wife or girlfriend, run up, hug him like he'd just returned from a six-month expedition to Antarctica...… and disappear. I did that at the arrivals gate to a random family man and his kids once with the aforementioned wild post kiss dash, but heard him say "Gina? I have no clue who that was. Really!" Somebody's going to have questions on the ride home.
But the best one happened in Boston Common. I was sitting on a bench eating lunch when a couple visiting from Texas approached me.
“Mr. Lowe!”
They were genuinely excited. “We're huge fans.” I laughed. “You've got the wrong guy.” They insisted I was Rob Lowe. To be fair, when I was younger, I had been told I looked a little like him. I explained that I was not Rob Lowe. I was Fred. Just Fred. Eating lunch. They weren't buying it.
I showed them my driver's license. They looked at it. Then they basically dismissed it. “Celebrities use fake names.” I remember thinking: Well, shit. At that point, I had two choices. I could continue arguing with reality... or I could accept the reality they had already created.
So I shrugged. “Okay. You got me.” And just like that, I became Rob Lowe. For the next maybe 15 minutes, I played along. We walked around Boston Common. Pictures by the swan boats. Pictures near the statues. Pointing at the skyline, hugging each of them. More pictures smiling. Waving. Generally behaving like a celebrity who apparently had absolutely nothing better to do that afternoon.
I drew the line at autographs. “Sorry, ” I told them, “Rob Lowe doesn’t DO autographs.” I briefly considered adding, “Unless you have $100.” They probably would have given it to me had they had it. But, nope! That’s where this stops being funny and starts becoming fraud. And then I'd have made Mr. Lowe—and, by proxy, myself—look like an asshole for requiring signature fees.
But photographs? Sure, all day. Like I said before, it didn't take that long. A few minutes later, they thanked me, were very happy, and went on their way. I went back to work.
Maybe a week later, I had one of those weird “cut to Fred laughing hard to himself on a crowded elevator” moments again.
The reason was simple. Somewhere in Texas, I still like to imagine that couple telling the story, beaming with excitement:
“We met Rob Lowe in Boston!”
Eventually, somebody pulls out the photographs.
Everyone looks.
Someone squints.
Then: “Uh...”
The couple looks confused.
“What’s wrong?”
“That’s great! You met Rob Lowe. Do you have any pictures with him?”
They proudly hold up the photos. The person looks again.
Then: “Yeah. Ok. We've seen these. That guy doesn't look anything like Rob Lowe.”
Silence.
The fantasy is crushed.
The couple looks at each other and, in unison, asks: “Then who the hell was that guy?”
And somewhere, surrounded by their family and friends, the story of meeting Rob Lowe in Boston is officially dead. On an elevator in Boston, Fred is still laughing. Remembering my dear departed Mom's advice to her annoying son decades earlier: “If you can't learn to laugh at yourself, you'll never understand why we're all laughing at you.”
And honestly? That's the whole point. Some of the best moments in life don't require a plane ticket, a reservation, $200, or three months of planning. Sometimes you're just sitting on a bench eating lunch. Sometimes you're walking through a city. Sometimes you're standing in an airport. And sometimes you have the opportunity to make an otherwise completely ordinary moment just a little more ridiculous.
Online and in real life, I hear people say they're bored all the time. When they ask what they can do, I give them ten ideas. The pushback is usually, “Yeah, but I don't have any money.” Fine. I give them twenty things they can do that don't cost a dime. At some point, I start wondering if they're actually bored—or just waiting for me to solve their afternoon.
I evoke maternal wisdom once again. My mother had a theory about bored people.“Look, here's my perspective,” she'd say. “When it comes to bored people, my experience is that boring people without imaginations are usually the fastest ones to get bored. ”Harsh? Absolutely. Wrong? I don't think so. I've spent enough time around people—and enough time being one myself—to think Mom was onto something.
You don't need more money to have more fun.You don't necessarily need more time.You might just need to look around and ask: What could I do with this? Because boredom isn't always a lack of things to do. Sometimes it's a lack of curiosity.
And occasionally... it's a willingness to become Rob Lowe for five minutes. Against your better judgment.
