I was listening to a podcast and the speaker was talking about an article from CNN demanding that we use new (neo) pronouns when non-binary people want us to. Neo-pronouns include xe/xem/xyr, ze/hir/hirs, and ey/em/eir. The speaker believed that these new pronouns are nothing but posturing by those who want to be seen as different, interesting, and unique. They compared using these pronouns to people who buy cool rock-n-roll t-shirts at Walmart who have never really listened to the band or went to a concert when they were performing. Adopting a neo-pronoun was all for show. It even made the person using them look desperate, like they were only seeking attention.

And a person desperate for attention is as interesting as a glass of lukewarm milk.

When you think about it, neo-pronouns communicate more about how you want to be seen rather than who you actually are. The podcast host then asked the question, “If pronouns don’t make you different and unique, what then does make a person interesting?”

This question hit like a bomb that exploded in my mind, and I couldn’t stop wondering, “What does make a person interesting? I want to know!!” 

How would you answer this? Is a person interesting because of their clothes, hairstyle, or the type of car they drive? Is a person interesting because they can dress up in a cosplay Spiderman mask or wear a skimpy Wonder Woman outfit looking like all the other comic book hero wannabes? Is a person interesting because they can spout the popular talking points of the day like “cap”, “simp”, “razz”, and “boujee”? Or should all of us be impressed when a person can press hard on the gas pedal of their jacked-up F-150 truck and rev their engine (because we all know how hard that is to do)?

If these things don’t make a person interesting, then what does?

That got me thinking. I went back into the recesses of my mind and thought about the people in my past  that I considered “interesting” and “unique.” First of all, I am not going to include anyone in my immediate family, because they are my family. I know them intimately so they don’t count, even if I must admit that I find all of them to be some of the most interesting people in the world. Maybe that is the answer, but let’s put that thought on hold for later.

Three people come to my mind immediately: Buzz Sieple, Mr. Hurlihy, and my Grandmother Weeks — she got remarried and I knew her as Gram Kretz. Right off the bat, I noticed every person on my list was much older than me. Looking back on it, while growing up, I generally accepted the fact that older people had both wisdom and experience that I didn’t have, so I naturally looked up to older people. It was a default mode for me. As I think about it, respecting adults is something our culture is desperately missing. The youth revolution has been raging for the last thirty-some years, and with social media pouring gasoline on it, younger people now think they are the smartest in the room and the thought leaders of culture.

Twitter is flooded with people under the age of 21 brashly commanding the world of which pronouns to use, how to treat different marginalized groups, and how people need to think and act politically. And most of these vitriolic rants are being recorded from their parent’s basement, which indicates they don’t even yet know what it means to pay bills. It is The Dunning–Kruger effect on steroids (aka least competent in a certain subject area overestimate their skills the most). Greta Thunberg is the perfect case in point when she began lecturing the world at the ripe old age of 15. Listening to a teenager tell us all how we are failing is not that interesting, it just becomes annoying.

So let me get more specific about the three interesting people I picked:

Buzz Sieple

In the fifth grade, I started playing tackle football for my elementary school team. It was back in the stone age (1970s) when coaches yelled, swore, and would prod kids to tackle by trying to get them to rip the opponent’s head clean off their shoulder pads. I played for a Catholic Parochial School and our coach thought he was the reincarnation of Knute Rockne. Football was everything to him. We had over 100 5th-8th grade students come out for the team. I was one of the youngest and smallest players on the team. To help train these kids, about ten dads volunteered to also yell and swear along with the head coach.

And then there was Buzz Sieple. Buzz was his real name. And he was my running back coach. Buzz wasn’t a dad, he just loved our school and wanted to help students learn the game of football. And Buzz was cool. 

Every practice he came driving up in his work truck, still wearing his work jeans and a dirty t-shirt. His arms were huge, he had long hair, and I still remember he sported a single army tattoo on his right bicep. Everyone knew Buzz was tough, you could see it in his squinty, steel-blue eyes and soft-spoken manner. Think Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry. One thing Buzz Sieple did not do was yell or swear, all he did was teach the fundamentals, and every boy on the team listened. While other coaches tried to be intimidating through their cursing and belittling, Buzz just was. You could sense the respect people gave him. 

One day during practice they put me in as running back against the older kids and I scored a touchdown. As I was running I heard Buzz say under his breath, “Look at that little s— run!” I have never forgotten that, and that was one of those moments that made me believe in myself. I admired Buzz Sieple so much that at the age of 18 when I made a fake I.D. to get into a bar with my friends, I used the name Buzz Sieple.

Mr. Hurlihy

I was the little ‘punk-kid’ of our family growing up: the youngest of six, with skinny arms and knobby knees, known as “little Chrissy” to my three older sisters. I had to always sit at the kid’s table when relatives came over. I wore my brother’s (and sister’s) hand-me-down clothes. I went to bed early while the rest of my siblings got to play outside in the yard with my cousins from Louisiana. I usually was picked last for capturing the flag. Not many people regarded the youngest well, but then there was Mr. Hurlihy. 

He often came over to our house during holiday get-togethers. At first, I thought he was another one of my many uncles. However, over time I learned he was one of my dad’s best college buddies who loved to come over because he and his wife really enjoyed our family. He also smiled a lot. And the biggest shocker of all, he actually knew me by my first name and not just as the youngest cousin of the crazy Weeks, Roeten, and Weber clans. “Hey Chris,” he would say, “how is it going, buddy? Your dad tells me you are playing flag football this year. Are you excited?” 

All I can say is that it didn’t matter if he came from the untouchable adult world — when he came down to my world I knew he liked me and really cared about me. I often wondered, “Why didn’t the other aunts and uncles venture down to our world? Why didn’t they ask me about flag football?”  I remember when I would sometimes sneak up to the card table and ask how to play Pinochle, the usual response was, “It’s too complicated for you, go back to playing Lawn Jarts — just don’t throw them at your cousin Becky.” But if my dad or Mr. Hurlihy was there at the table, they would sit me up on their lap and say, “Here, let me show you my hand…Spades is trump, those are the black shovel-looking cards, and you need to try to get a run with them….etc., etc., etc.” Was this allowed? A grown-up entering the world of a little punk kid?

Gram Kretz

One tough lady, that is for sure, but boy did she love life. She was opinionated, sometimes stern, and controlling, but fire and passion burned within her. When she would come for the Christmas holiday she usually arrived late at night and would come in our room to wake us up and give us kids all hugs. In the morning she would have us sing, “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” and then point out the window at the vibrant red cardinal sitting at the bird feeder. She really saw and enjoyed the small things in life, was excited about almost everything, and wanted us to catch the excitement too. Some say her passion was born from her Polish upbringing, maybe it is because she listened to Opera, but one thing is for sure, when Gram Kretz was in the house you knew it. Was she a bit overbearing? Yes! Was she argumentative?  Of course!

But boy was she interesting.

So looking at these three different people, what is the key to the original question: “What makes someone interesting?”

Two things stick out:

1. They were an original, no imitation. They never tried to copy anyone else, they didn’t try to conform, nor did they simply go with the flow to fit in. They lived as they wanted, and they were true to who they were. Maybe that is why I find each one of my siblings interesting, I know them not based on a generic set of pronouns or identity groups; I know them as they are — unique individual human beings made in the image of God. And that is what is interesting.
2. They were not embarrassed for who they were. No apologies, as the old saying goes, “What you see is what you get” with them. Buzz didn’t care that he just came from his job, Mr. Hurlihy was too busy caring about others to think of himself, and Gram Kretz loved living life so much that she didn’t have time to try to impress anyone.

Today we live in a world where no one knows who they are so they need labels and pronouns to find identity. And they need you to accept them. It is both shallow and soul-sucking to be identified with the same categories as a thousand other people who are trying to fit in — and then force people to see you as important.

Do you want to be interesting? Get to the point where you stop imitating and start living. And soon you will see that even if people don’t like you or understand you, it won’t matter a lick because you will finally be living.