Guide for Christian teens:
How to be interesting.

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How to be interesting

A guide for Christian teens

The secret to being interesting is to know and do unusual things.

What sort of unusual things?

Here is a short list to get you started.

1. Learn a bit about several unusual things. Get out of your comfort zone and think up some really unusual subjects. Then research them either on the internet, in books or encyclopedias from your local library, or ask questions of people who know the subject. You don't have to know the subject well, you just have to find some unusual things about the subject that you can bring into conversations to show you know something about it.
2. Learn to speak a few phrases in a foreign language. If you know someone who speaks Serbian or Russian or Chinese or whatever, get them to teach you a few phrases. Don't just go for common phrases like “What is the time?” — find out how to say something unusual that will be funny, like “My grandmother burps a lot,” or “I have lost a fat bulldog,” or “Do the rats around here drink coffee?”
3. Learn to play the ukulele. And learn how to spell it correctly — ukUlele, not ukElele. Not only is it the easiest musical instrument to learn, but there is a ukulele revival starting around the world, so you will be in on the latest fad. You will probably get a reputation for being interesting on this factor alone, especially if you learn to play a simple hymn and upload a clip to GodTube or YouTube. (PS The guys above, in the Christian band Skillet, are playing guitars by the way, not big ukuleles.)
4. Learn something about a few unusual or little-known places, like Calamvale Creek in Australia, or the city of Post in Texas, or Lake Baikal in Russia. People are always talking about travelling, so you will have lots of opportunities to throw in something you have learned about the animals at Calamvale Creek, for instance.
5. Keep a notebook of any unusual facts you find, such as, “Did you know that blue-eyed lemurs are the only primates besides humans with blue eyes?” (If you don't know what a lemur is, go to the Google search engine and type in “blue-eyed lemur” — pronounced LEE-muh.) Or maybe you found out that walruses are right-handed. You should be able to stop any conversation dead in its tracks by bringing that up!
6. Find out something unusual about the Bermuda Triangle, or the Shroud of Turin, or Schapelle Corby's family, or the baby in India who was born with a tail, or the frogs of Puerto Rico, or why a famous Noah's Ark site is a phoney, or what makes a firefly glow, or foods that keep people looking young. Write them down so you will remember them later.
7. Do zany things occasionally. The secret here is to be noticed, but to make sure you don't hurt people or their feelings. And don't do things that will make you look like an idiot. You want to be known as interesting, not stupid. Examples:
   • learn to say the letters of the alphabet backwards
   • try to read a book upside down
   • learn to juggle coins
   • learn some cool new words, and see if you and your friends can invent more
   • invite 50 peope to a picnic at a large park, and ask them to bring something to eat and drink (no alcohol), and to each think up one short game to play at the picnic; or get them to perform a funny short play there; or get them to write and read out a short poem that has the word “wombat” in it that will entertain at least 10 people at the picnic
   • find out if there is a group of atheists or cultists in your area and get a group from your church to go and try to convert them.
8. Take our new Creation Tips polls about your views on church, religion, creation and evolution, and ask your friends if they have strong opinions on these subjects.
9. Wear something occasionally that is nothing like what you normally wear. For instance, if you always wear dark clothes, wear something bright one day and act as though nothing has changed.
10. Get your hair styled professionally a completely different way.
11. Change your fashion habits for one day each month. This could be adding or removing an accessory that people aren't used to seeing on/off you, wearing or not wearing a coat, going formal or informal, rolling up or unrolling sleeves, whatever … If people give you negative comments, it will usually be because they are used to seeing you the old way (which is a good reason for you to change!). So just say you are starting a new trend or usuing your resources more wisely.
12. Stay up to date with what's making news. Learn at least the basic facts of stories that seem to go over several days. Or follow the items on our Newsdesk page. If places are in the news, look them up on Google maps or in an atlas so you will know where they are, and learn a little about the place from the internet or an encyclopedia.
13. Learn the problems with human evolution, so you will be informed when the subject comes up.
14. Learn the names of leading rock singers, opera singers, country and western singers, and the names of some of their songs.
15. Find out the names of some top players in several sports, and learn the basic rules of those sports.
16. When you travel or go on vacation, go somewhere that your friends have never been. And make sure you get photos of yourself near signs and landmarks there.
17. Collect unusual things and take up unusual hobbies, so when friends visit you they will see fascinating objects to talk about. Examples:
    • build a small scale model of Noah's Ark
    • collect boomerangs
    • collect ships in bottles
    • keep unusual tropical fish
    • make a floral clock.
18. Learn something unusual about subjects that often come up in conversation: celebrities, travel, chocolate, sport, food …
19. Keep generating socially conscious ideas for your youth pastor or group of friends to take part in. Examples:
    • Get a group together to clean up graffiti in your area (check with your local authorities whether it's OK, and whether they are willing to provide cleaning equipment).
    • Go to a local aged-care home to entertain or talk to the old folks there.
    • Ask at your local bakery or florist whether they ever have leftovers you could take to the homeless or needy people in your area.
    • Volunteer at your local charity to help when they do mailouts.
20. See your pastor about the possibility of running short courses from your church for people in your area. Recruit anyone in your church who is an expert at something to run the course, either because it's their line of work or their hobby.
21. Use objects in imaginative and out-of-context ways, e.g. make a necklace out of large buttons, a large statue or cross out of cans or colorful bottles.

Interesting Bible characters

The Bible is full of interesting and unusual people. Joseph is remembered for his coat of many colors (Genesis 37:3), Solomon for his unusual wisdom (1 Kings 4:30), Joshua for his exploits (Joshua 6:27), Rahab for her courage (Joshua 2), Absalom for his beauty and his hair (2 Samuel 14:25-26), Jesus for His miracles (John 21:25), Paul for his clever speeches (Acts 18:22-31), and so on.

How people think

People will think you are interesting if you have a supply of unusual facts you can bring into conversations (don't overdo it though — one or two per conversation is usually enough).

And they will think you are interesting if you occasionally look different. Hair and clothes are the two most obvious items to work on here.

The owner of a high-priced clothing store once said that the only clothes she stocked were clothes she either loved or hated. She found that what she liked, others also liked, and what she hated, some people liked. It was the clothes that she neither liked nor disliked that no-one wanted to buy. So sometimes wear something that you don't like. Some people will love it!

Being interesting is being slightly unusual. It is not being weird, or racist, or intolerant, or thoughtless, or uncaring, or talking loud, or looking like a freak, or unfeeling, or stupid, or pushy, or loud-mouthed, or bragging, or a know-it-all.

And being interesting is not confined to any particular personality type. You can be interesting whether you are shy or sociable, foreign-born or local-born, handicapped or not, and no matter what your skin color is. Just have your unusual facts and your unusual hobbies and your unusual way of dressing ready, and let this become the normal you!

Related topics:

• How to be popular!
• How to persuade and influence others.
• How to make friends.
• Teens who go to church have less trouble and higher values.
• Tattoos? Why bother!
• Karen Johnson's amazing high school paper — written the day before she died in a car crash.

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