The most boring man in the world.

Paul was a truly boring man. When he was young, he would read books about retirement planning and watch golf tournaments for fun. When he got older his life didn’t change much. He worked as an accountant for a firm with offices dotted around his local town. He drank at a local bar which was run by his friend, so they could talk about their lives. He never really had a partner in the way most people did.<br><br>Paul didn’t live a life particularly noteworthy. He was really boring. <br><br>The only peculiarity about Paul was that almost no one ever remembered him. When introduced to him at a party or in a bar, people would almost instantly forget he was there. People who met him on two occasions forgot that they had met before, sometimes forgetting what he even looked like. In fact, he was so boring that even I have trouble remembering him.<br><br>I think his name was Paul.<br><br>He drank in a bar run by a man called Dave, who was a friend of his. Dave remembered him because they were friends before they met in the bar. On one occasion, a new barman started working there. He appeared in the bar one day and just... started working. He was there for a few years, and seemed to be doing an okay job (I can’t quite recall what he looked like), but the day he left we all forgot he existed. I am pretty sure he didn’t exist in the first place. <br><br>This barman was almost as boring as Paul. Almost.<br><br>I can’t remember many details of the barman, except that he was incredibly boring and seemed to be doing the job for free. He was never really noticed while we were there, except when Paul turned up and they would sit in the corner and talk quietly. The barman might have been called Max. Or maybe it was Matt. Or possibly Mike. I can’t remember because he was so boring. <br><br>One day, Paul walked into the bar at his usual time. He didn’t really drink, but liked to sit at the bar reading a book or occasionally talking to the other patrons. On this day, however, he sat down next to a woman at the end of the bar. The woman at the end of the bar was in her mid-twenties and was wearing a bright yellow sundress. <br><br>She was boring.<br><br>There was something about her that I just couldn’t remember. She had short dark hair and green eyes, and was wearing a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of her nose as she stared at a textbook that she was reading. She looked up as Paul sat down and smiled awkwardly at him.<br><br>I can’t really remember many details about what happened next because the two of them barely register in my memory, but I am pretty sure they started talking. She might have been called... Dawn? Or perhaps Dana? I just can’t remember. <br><br>The boring woman closed her book and started talking to Paul. As they chatted, more and more boring people started appearing in the bar. There was a man with a white beard and a young girl who looked like his daughter, and a man in a yellow shirt with a bunch of pens in his breast pocket. The girl had a notebook full of crayons and was happily colouring as her father sat next to her, with a newspaper in his hands and a small pair of spectacles perched on his nose. The man with the pens in his pocket was sitting at a table, typing at a laptop connected to a mobile Wi-Fi hot-spot.<br><br>These people were boring. The girl looked up and started staring at me, and I couldn’t help but look away because she was so boring. The man with the beard was reading a book that had been published at the turn of the last century, and the man with the pens was typing what looked like (and might have been) a textbook.<br><br>Eventually, the boring people were joined by a boring band of musicians who played instruments which were so boring I can’t even begin to describe them. One of them had a double-ended clarinet and another wore a sombrero. They were boring because they played a *film score* (and not even a particularly well known one). <br><br>They started playing at 10 o’ clock, and they were immediately ignored by all of us because they were just too boring. The most boring man in the world looked over at them and nodded before turning back to his new friend.<br><br>She was wearing a yellow sundress and had short, dark hair and green eyes. I remember because I am writing this down, but if I wasn’t you can be sure I would forget again. <br><br>I can’t even remember what they talked about. They might have been talking about stamp collecting or the different species of tree that existed in the world. I don’t know, because they were so boring. After a while, the band started playing quite loudly and their boring music drove me out into the night.<br><br>The band played on for the rest of the night. I went home and listened to them through my window. I might have dreamt it, but sometimes their music sounded quite interesting. It wasn’t though, I must have dreamt it.<br><br>The next day, the barman asked how my night had gone. I told him that the band had been incredibly boring because they played a film soundtrack on boring instruments. He laughed and said that the band had played a collection of songs by The Who and The Clash, and that they had been quite loud. <br><br>I said that wasn’t what I had heard and he smirked at me. He told me that I must have been hearing things because the band were an old school rock band with a penchant for being loud.<br><br>I told him that wasn’t what I heard and he said that I must have been deaf if I didn’t hear them play that.<br><br>It didn’t matter. The most boring man in the world had met a friend, and that was boring.<br><br>Edit: you guys are awesome. I'd like to say thank you to everyone who's upvoted me, to everyone who's PM'd me and everyone who's posted comments on this thread. You all rule. Bronze and Silver? Totally awesome! Gold? Humbling.<br><br>Edit 2: I don't check this thread very often any more, but I'd like to say that I am reading all your comments. Your fan-theories, your questions, your little asides. Thank you so much for all your comments. They mean an awful lot to me.<br><br>Edit 3: Yes, I am aware of the similarity between this story and The pub with no name. If you think it is too similar, I am sorry. I wrote this first, but posted last. I am not trying to plagiarise.