If there’s one thing I absolutely, resolutely despise it’s drama. I utterly abhor it! I hate the speculation, the arbitrariness of it all, the power dynamics at play. I haven’t the tolerance for the faintest whiff of drama: a twinkle in the eye of a betrayer, the chance of a sordid family secret, the slightest wavering of one’s motives. Not. For. Me.
Any drama in the slightest sends me reeling! I literally have a physical reaction to it because I hate drama that much. It’s like an allergy except magnified by a thousand. Instead of hives and a narrowing airway, my body convulses sending me straight to the center of whatever crowd or room I’m in and it forces air from my lungs in great wailing shrieks I can’t even control. It’s so embarrassing and disruptive but I can’t help it at all! I shriek and howl until the drama has left my vicinity because I unequivocally and vocally hate drama.
I can’t imagine why anyone would like drama. Rumors! Backstabbing! Overreactions! That thing when one friend introduces two of their friends who don’t know each other but through the careful use of backhanded compliments and confessions of faux concern pits the two against each so that the two have to fight for their friend’s attention and the one remains solidly at the center! Really, it’s all about attention, which I also hate, though not as much as I hate drama.
I find drama so wholly unappealing.
Rising slowly from a table, taking the slightest sip of wine before throwing it in the face of my company, strutting out of the restaurant, my scarf billowing as I light a cigarette and everyone gazes at me and a waiter starts to say you can’t smoke that in here but then another waiter stops him and says she can? I’d really rather not.
Suddenly leaping to my feet, throwing down my opera glasses and shouting “you” from a balcony, mid-aria, one gloved finger emphatically pointing down to seat 3B? Ick!
Leaping out of a moving cab and running into a bustling city square, mid-rain storm beautifully sobbing and screaming over my shoulder to the mystery figure driving away, “how could you?” No thanks, buddy!
Sometimes people—foolish, desperate, lonely people—get it in their heads that I, of all people, like drama. How could I ever dream of being a proponent of it when, in reality, I am a victim, torturously stalked by drama at every turn?!
When someone thinks that of me it just makes me want to orchestrate an affair between their best friend and their lover and arrange for the whole thing to blow up at another friend’s destination wedding. It makes me want to watch an entire network of decades-long relationships crumble in one shocking instant, like a custom sand sculpture of newlyweds struck by an airborne Louboutin. It even makes me want to seduce their brother and convince him to “borrow” a boat to take me to the mainland after everything’s gone to hell. Then I’d leave him high and dry as I hop onto the dangling rope ladder of a helicopter in the middle of a fish market, the sound of sirens approaching, as the locals look on in awe and he looks on in horror. Just so they’d feel the hurt and humiliation I feel at being accused of liking drama when in fact I despise it.
Ultimately, if there’s one thing I hate more than drama, it’s the constant gossip from everyone I know and many I don’t about whether I like drama, which I hate!