Questions about interestingness

This question was posed to me by reader Blake Riley: "What do you think makes a person interesting?"

The question seemed innocent at first, but the more I thought about it the more fascinated and perplexed by the question I became. I see two ways of looking at it: 1) what characteristics to me personally make a person interesting, or the far more *interesting* question of 2) what is it psychologically that makes one interesting to another?

I did a little digging on the psychology of interest and learned that there is not a lot to be found. The Wikipedia pages on interest and curiosity are surprisingly weak. However, I did come across some fairly insightful research that I will share next week after you've had some some time to chew on the following questions.