I remember his eyes – how gentle they were, emanating warmth and tenderness. I saw a sadness in them too. He’d been my GP for most of my young life. He’d not just seen me grow up but helped me grow up. And there I was in front of him then, as a just turned 20-year-old young man, not quite in tears, but as close as I might want to be in front of the doctor right there, right then…

I was trying to explain to him why I’d lost interest in life – pointing to various things that weren’t quite getting to the nub of what was really troubling me. My first relationship was at its end, I was struggling financially, and I no longer cared for my studies, or for that matter anything I’d previously found joy in…this was also the point in my life where my drinking was getting wildly out of control, and that wasn’t helping none of the above.

But it was through his listening that the vulnerable thing about how I felt about myself spilled out of my lips – that I’m just not very interesting. Amidst his tenderness, the doctor smiled – a knowing smile, as if the smiler had himself wrestled with something similar in his own life. And it conveyed to me what I knew deep in my heart but struggled to hold on to whenever meeting a new person, that life was not about being an interesting person…indeed…!

The reason I’m recounting this distant memory is that how I felt then has an uncanny resemblance to what I am experiencing now as I navigate my new life in Sierra Leone…and I know that working it through will reveal nuggets that will help me make sense of the past and the present. This is the work of happiness.

The Journey to Feeling Uninteresting

I took a year out before starting my university degree and spent it working full-time in a large local supermarket. I’d pushed trollies, stacked shelves, and scanned barcodes by day. And when it came to the weekend, I’d raved, and I’d raved hard. I made a lot of new and different friends that year, escaping the rigidity of my life at a posh grammar school. I’d thrived academically at that school, but the school itself was a few rungs above where I came from. I needed something different – a sort of return, if you like, to the people and places from whence I came. Whilst the new friends teased me for my schooling background, they nevertheless appreciated me and what I had to say about the world.

But once at university, next to people who’d spent 6 months volunteering in Africa, embarked on a ski season, or interned at the BBC, my supermarket-raving experiences didn’t seem to cut it. I found it difficult to relate to many of the people I encountered, and I found myself with little of interest to share in conversations. I had deduced that I just wasn’t interesting enough and I sort of felt myself becoming invisible. I got mad on the drink at about that time, which helped me become visible alright, but for all of the wrong reasons and I became invisible to myself.

But zoom forward 25+ years and I am again having a crushing amount of internal mind chatter about not being very interesting. Which is interesting! Not least because I’m one of the most interesting people I know. My wife, in fact, believes I’m probably in the top 5% most interesting people in the world – which she’ll smile at, because for years it was my joke, not hers. But in-jokes aside, I’m old and wise enough to know that you have to take any internal mind chatter with a large pinch of salt. Pay attention to the chatter, definitely, but never mistake it for truth.

Behind Being Interesting

In reality, just as I was in my younger years, I am craving for someone to take an interest in me; I want to be seen for who I am.

To have my inner world – my thoughts, emotions, values, needs, intentions, strengths, vulnerabilities, the whole lot – not only welcomed but recognised, understood, and accepted by others. That is where connection, safety, and genuineness reside and they are essential.

But, of course, when I was younger, I didn’t know this, let alone be able to articulate it, and it manifested as a crude desire to be an interesting person. I had made the common error of mistaking ‘being seen’ for being admired, liked, and praised. I recognise now that my GP had a firm grasp of that and what he did there and then is take the time to really see me, to show me that his listening to me did not depend on me having done interesting things.

That moment of being genuinely seen went a long way. Through my vulnerability, because a willingness to be vulnerable is part of the deal, something shifted for me in that doctor’s room. I am eternally grateful I had a doctor who was willing and able to take the time to be human with me. It was that interaction, alongside being back home for the first time and reconnecting with my old life and people, that helped me realise that the path I was on wasn’t for me, at least not at that point in my life.

Primarily, I wanted to focus on getting myself in order – to get to know myself, becoming interested in myself, which would eventually result in me understanding the problem with taking the mind’s endless chatter at face value. I also wanted to build enough internal resources so that I could better withstand not being seen in the future.

Dealing With Not Being Seen

And so, here we go again. I’ve been feeling unseen – desperately so. At the simplest level it has again manifested as my mind telling me that I am just not that interesting. Whilst I find myself back in my twenties, I can also see that this has much earlier roots in not feeling seen as a child. On some days, when moments of being seen have felt particularly thin on the ground, I’ve struggled to feel real. Sometimes I end up doing very little with my day, sitting around in my pants feeling spiritually and emotionally bereft.

But the resounding truth is that it’s not because I am not that interesting. What is closer to the truth, as it was all those years ago too, is that I’ve not had many conversations where I’ve been able to speak openly and vulnerably about myself.

Life here, like so many places, is shaped around what people do, particularly around what they are doing specifically here in Sierra Leone. And what have I got? I don’t have a coherent narrative about my presence here, other than being her husband. Yet, I did have a full life before now, but its rare I’ve found myself talking about much of that – probing questions don’t get asked and ideas aren’t explored.

But then I have to ask myself how much it is because I’ve not dared to be vulnerable. Or that, maybe in my desperation to be seen and the ease at which being seen can so easily conflate with being interesting, I’ve lost humility. Perhaps I am guilty myself of not creating spaces where it is easy to see into the heart and soul of another being.

My friend Matt puts it like this – it doesn’t matter who you are and what you’ve done, the only thing that matters is that you know you are loved. It’s a tough one to remember, but he’s right. I’m thankful for his reminders, and his love, and that I have encountered enough people like him in life who have held that love for me. One day I’ll recognise there are people here who hold that for me. And maybe I will be the one to hold that for others here too. Maybe that’s why I am here. Probably, but isn’t that why anyone is anywhere, to see others exactly as they are…