People are always surprised by how many stories I have. I don’t think I’m living a more interesting life than everyone else. I don’t think I actively seek out unusual experiences, either.
The art of turning any conversation into some completely unrelated story that has happened is a cultivated skill I didn’t realize I picked up. Someone could ask me how my day went, and somehow ten minutes later I’d be explaining how I ended up getting lost somewhere I had never been before, or doing something that seemed like a terrible idea even at the time.
I’ve been told more than once that I’m the type of person who has “a lot of lore.” For a while, I thought that probably meant that I was just someone who happened to have stranger experiences than the average person. Maybe I was more willing to do random things, or maybe I just somehow ended up in odd situations more often.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that probably wasn’t the case, and that I’m probably not the only one.
Everyone has lore
My friends have plenty of stories too. Sometimes someone will casually mention something that happened to them years ago, and I’ll wonder how I’d never heard about it before. They’ll tell me about a random person they met, a night that threw them for a loop, and I’ll immediately think that it’s such a good story.
That made me realize how many experiences we probably have that we just don’t think count as stories.
I think a lot of us have a pretty specific idea of what makes something interesting enough to remember. Maybe it has to involve going somewhere exciting, meeting someone new, or doing something you normally wouldn’t do. If nothing particularly memorable happened, it can be easy to think there isn’t really a story there.
Most of us have different ideas of what makes a story interesting. Your mundane could be the craziest story someone else has ever heard. Sometimes it’s easy to think nothing really memorable happened, when in reality there could be an amazing story there!
Fun Stories start small
A lot of the things that eventually become good stories probably didn’t feel important when they happened. Sometimes something weird just happens in the middle of a completely normal day.
You may say something embarrassing, end up in an awkward situation, or have an interaction that just makes absolutely no sense. It might feel unimportant or even embarrassing at the moment, but in a few weeks, you’re telling your friends about it and laughing. Being able to laugh at yourself is a pretty important part of having lore, too!
It’s easy to get embarrassed over things that happen to you, even when they aren’t necessarily your fault. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is just accept that it happened, laugh about it, and eventually turn it into a story.
You don’t always have to go somewhere new or do something completely out of character for something interesting to happen. Weird things happen in regular life all the time. The real difference comes from whether you notice them, remember them, and let yourself find them funny.
The second that you stop deciding that something has to be a huge experience to count as an interesting story, you start realizing how many little things happen to you that you would normally forget. Maybe we forget those moments to not relive embarrassment or feeling unimportant, but either way, they’re oftentimes the moments that make the best stories.
The more you think about it, though, the more you realize that wasn’t necessarily the case.
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