Don Freeling was a man amongst men, an opinion leader, an independent free-thinker, and -- above all else, above everything else -- he was a crashing bore. So tedious was Don's company and conversation in fact that a whole generation (so it seemed) coined a phrase in his honour: the Don Freeling Effect.
The Don Freeling Effect could be used as shorthand to describe other people so afflicted (although few, if any, ever reached the dizzy heights that Don himself had achieved): people whose small-talk drove companions to invent the most ridiculous excuses to get away, whose company turned the intellects of seemingly normal people to green jelly, whose conversations made the thought of a three-cavity visit to the dentist seem pleasant by comparison.
Don was without malice. It was just that he was totally without spark.
You could not describe him as being bored. He seemed quite active (doing what was unclear) and self-arnused. It was just that his effect on other people was almost terminal.
He was in no way physically afflicted (as far as anyone could tell). Looking at a photograph of him you might say he was reasonably handsome. But in the flesh, with his words to augment his appearance, he might have been the Elephant Man.
Does every human being dream of being a giant in some way? Some perhaps dream of being great basketballers, others great writers or speakers, others successful in their chosen profession. And when they achieve their goals, even if they then reach higher, they know they have achieved something. But not Don. He had no conception, not even the slightest glimmer, that he was the most boring man alive. And unburdened by even a grain of self-awareness, he bumped through life, seemingly happy enough in himself but leaving a trail of poor souls who felt as though their brains had been turned to suet by this one-man ennui machine.
Don had no reason to know how dull he really was. After all, he met lots of people. (Of course he did, as people introduced him to unsuspecting strangers at parties as a ploy to escape.)
It was hard to know just how he did it. But it only took a few words before grown men would feign gastroenteritis as a ploy to flee. Generous souls who did not have the heart to cut conversations short soon found themselves overcome by a strange dizziness, or at very least a crippling inability to concentrate on what Don was saying for all the other thoughts in their minds: almost in spite of themselves conceiving excuses to be somewhere (anywhere) else, or conversational gambits which would firmly bring the discourse to a conclusion.
It seemed that he was reasonably successful in his career (although few lingered long enough to hear sagas of his working life). He was a lawyer, that everyone knew, although how he got clients and defended them in court was a mystery. Did Judges acquit his clients merely to escape him? Did clients give him their conveyancing because the tedium of the task seemed to suit him? Did divorcing couples find he gave them a short-term bond in their mutual astonishment at his sheer sogginess?
Don was not a bad man, at least as far as anyone got close enough to tell. He seemed quite amiable in fact. But his friendly and outgoing manner was fatally flawed by his basic, overpowering boredom.
Arguably it was the world's fault and not Don's. No-one seemed to have the ability or the heart to tell him just how awful he was in his happy-go-lucky, grinding sort of way. And perhaps it was now too late; it should have been done when he was a teenager and impressionable, perhaps willing and able to do something about his skills as a social black hole. But that was past, and the present was what affected the rest of the human race so much.
But then, no-one really cared enough about him to be bothered trying to reveal the awful truth to him. No-one got close enough (or no-one could get close enough).
It was not as though he physically or emotionally (as far as anyone could tell) harmed anyone. But he was still a sort of walking Chernobyl: if you knew of the dangers, you kept away; if you didn't know, the effects didn't hit you until it was too late.
The truth really was that he was a Living National Treasure. He was the Most Boring Man Alive. It was something to be able to point him out (from a distance), it gave colour to the language to describe the Don Freeling Effect and to use the phrase in conversation, knowing that hundreds of people knew precisely what you meant. Although impossible to talk with, he was interesting to talk about (although, it had to be admitted, one could not talk about him for very long without the Effect descending like a fog on the assembled company). To be frank, no-one really wanted to change him; change would deprive the language of the Don Freeling Effect.
He was a man amongst men, his utter greyness perversely added a sort of warmth to the world, his towering tediousness made him special.
© Tim Potter 1992
