Seriously! Have you ever noticed that when you’re not getting the results you want in your dating and relationship experiences there is often a significant amount of drama attached? And it often seems to be the case that it’s “their” fault? As in so-and-so is not behaving the way you think they should be and if they were only doing _______ and ________ instead then everything would be fine!
Now before you can effectively answer this question about drama, you need to have a clear understanding of what drama means in this context.
According to good ol’ Webster’s the definition of drama is: “Any situation or series of events having vivid, emotional, conflicting, or striking interest or results.”
That definition in and of itself doesn’t really create the foundational context for this conversation. Basically for this conversation consider that anything you (or the other person) is doing in an attempt to either get something or cause a response/reaction in someone else is considered drama. This could be anything from getting sympathy, to getting your way, to making a point, to getting attention, to avoiding conflict, saving the relationship, getting it done your way (often considered the ‘right’ way) and the list goes on…
We human beings will often act in strange ways to fulfill on making the list of above things happen. Some people slip into a “poor-me” state looking for sympathy and hoping to have people do things for them. Some people slip into a “let me help you” role taking the spotlight off themselves and their needs. Still others will use power/ blame/ and ‘you’re wrong’ to get their way.
Somehow we learned that these types of behaviors make more sense than just being honest about what we need or want. This tendency usually comes from the deep rooted fear if we just asked for what we wanted we’d get rejected and told no. From a conscious perspective this doesn’t really make any sense, that we would be allowing such a nonsensical idea to run us – but we do it all the time. It’s almost like the smoke-screen of the drama will stop us from having to see the reality of the situation!
A bigger, deeper root of this issue is due to us humans really resisting taking full responsibility for ourselves and what we have in our lives. If we just asked for what we actually wanted and then were denied (or worse!! what if you got what you wanted?? how would you handle that??) we might have to start looking at ourselves rather than being able to point the finger at another and make up excuses for why we don’t have the life and relationships we want. THAT is one of the most confronting things a human being can ever do! But we’ll save the topic of being personally responsible for another day!!
Until then start noticing you and your “relationship” with drama… it might be stronger and more pervasive than you might think!
