Drama - Dating - Life

Being knowledgeable about self-awareness and emotional intelligence has me pondering the following question: In relationships, if everyone worked on themselves, and addressed their own issues, more so than pointing out the other person's wrong actions, would not life be boring? I think life is fun now. But the fact that people like to blame others for making them feel a certain way does add excitement to life sometimes: The excitement of Drama. Here are some drama lines I have dished out in the past, as well as received:

You are bad/wrong for doing ____ to me:

Seven years ago I used this line a lot myself in a romantic relationship. I pointed my finger at my ex and told her that she was driving me nuts. The truth was I was driving myself nuts. I stayed with her for a year in the context of "she is driving me nuts". Eventually I had an epiphany and realized it had nothing to do with her. I became self aware later in the relationship, and I turned that line into, "When you said ___, I heard ____, and now I feel ___." That new form of communication was healthy, but it threw her off. She wanted to throw me out of a helicopter because I was no longer reactive. She liked the reactive drama version of me. But I wanted to change myself and grow. To do so, I practiced hypervigilant self-awareness daily; and just like a midget standing at a urinal, I knew I had to stay on my toes.

You don't pay me well enough:

I did feel a rush of drama when I quit. I'm not sure why I felt drama. I felt pretty good about the way I communicated my feeling of resentment related to my earnings versus input. That feeling of resentment is now gone, because I just said how I felt instead blaming the CEO. Well, that, and because I quit. Onward and upward.

Your logic is wrong:

Back in the day I use to love invalidating another's logic. I got my drama fix, and I got to feel superior, all at the same time. That was always a great rush for a couple hours. But, often this is a sign of feeling inferior to something in the world on a deeper level - at least for me. And that feeling is fine, because it is BS. I think the point here is that the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People gives great advice for this situation. But I forgot exactly what that advice is. But I do remember that book using the following quote from Benjamin Franklin: "I am probably wrong more often than I am right."

Ben is a lot smarter than I am. What a humble way to live. I love that the only real perfection is imperfection. I am perfectly imperfect.

Dating drama:

I will end this semi-pointless, and unfocused, article with a quote from the Urban Dictionary for the term "Dating Drama":

"Dating drama is when members of the opposite sex come together to try and find a lifetime partner. Instead of getting to know each other, they spend their entire time trying to impress the other by trying not to appear too needy, and conveying a sense of security about themselves.

Like all drama, it is found by many to be pointless. While making one's self look cool and collected, one ends up missing out on happiness when the level of disinterest shown turns off the other person and the date goes downhill from there."

So there you have it -- some helpful tips for interacting with the world.

All the best,
Matt the barista

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