I Like Interesting People

Day 196 – June 7, 2026

I’ve entered an era where impressive feels a little overrated. Interesting? Interesting gets my attention every single time. And I think that’s because I’ve met enough impressive people to realize impressive is often just good marketing.

Interesting is something else entirely. Interesting is harder. Interesting can’t really be faked. Not for long. Impressive is a résumé. Interesting is a story. Impressive tells you what somebody accomplished. Interesting makes you want to know what happened next.

There’s a difference. A big one.

The woman who moved across the country twice because curiosity kept winning arguments against certainty. The guy who knows everything about birds and somehow turns a conversation about sparrows into the most fascinating twenty minutes of your week. The friend who asks questions nobody else thinks to ask. The bartender with three unfinished novels. The retired accountant who suddenly became obsessed with mushroom foraging. The woman with terrible taste in men and flawless taste in books. Especially her.

Those people interest me.

Because interesting people usually have edges. Contradictions. Stories. Depth. A little chaos. A little damage. A little magic. They’ve made weird decisions. They’ve changed their minds. They’ve followed strange instincts. They’ve gotten lost. They’ve started over. Many several times.

They’re not optimized. They’re alive.

And I’ve started noticing how much modern culture rewards impressive over interesting. Followers. Titles. Status. Achievements. Credentials. Visibility. The external stuff. The stuff that’s easy to point at. Meanwhile, some of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met would look completely ordinary on paper.

That’s the trick. Paper lies. People don’t. Not forever.

Eventually who somebody is starts leaking through. Through their humor. Through their curiosity. Through what they notice. Through how they treat people who can’t do anything for them. Through the stories they tell. Through the questions they ask.

Especially the questions. I trust questions. More than answers. Answers are cheap. Everybody has answers. The internet manufactures them by the truckload. Questions are different. Questions reveal attention. Questions reveal hunger. Questions reveal humility. Questions reveal the shape of someone’s mind.

You can learn more about a person from one genuinely curious question than from an hour of hearing them talk about themselves. That’s probably why I’ve always loved curious people. Curious people make the world bigger. Certain people make it smaller. Curious people open doors. Certain people install locks. Curious people remain teachable.

And honestly? That’s sexy.

Not in the traditional sense. Although occasionally in the traditional sense. I mean intellectually. Existentially. There’s something deeply attractive about somebody who still wants to understand things. Somebody who isn’t finished. Somebody who hasn’t mistaken confidence for certainty. Somebody who still believes life might have a few surprises left.

I hope I never lose that.

Because curiosity has carried me through chapters optimism couldn’t survive. Curiosity stayed when confidence left. Curiosity stayed when certainty packed its bags and disappeared. Curiosity survived heartbreak. Curiosity survived fear. Curiosity survived grief. Curiosity survived entire versions of me.

It kept asking questions. It kept looking. It kept paying attention. And eventually, every single time, it led me somewhere worth going.

Roger, naturally, is one of the most curious creatures I’ve ever met. He investigates leaves. Leaves. Every walk contains at least twelve active investigations, three developing stories, and what appears to be an ongoing international inquiry into squirrels.

Nothing escapes review. A stick. A smell. A suspicious patch of grass. The world remains endlessly interesting to him. And maybe that’s the lesson. Maybe happiness isn’t knowing everything. Maybe happiness is remaining interested.

Maybe wisdom looks a lot less like certainty than we’ve been told. Maybe wisdom is still being curious after life gives you every reason not to be. Roger seems to think so. Then again, Roger also believes the vacuum cleaner is a supervillain. So we’ll call the jury out on that one. Either way, I’ll take interesting over impressive every single time.

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other.

And curiosity leading the way.