The Dozen Drama Rules (or How to be a Drama Queen)

Watching the Australian drama series "McLeod's Daughters," I have come to better understand the rules of drama. Little did I know, until I starting watching this series, that dramas hold valuable lessons about life... my life.

When I was a kid, I'd watch dramas, though I admit that I found them annoyingly frustrating and didn't quite understand their appeal. Unless, of course, the viewer actually enjoyed feeling as wretched as the characters. After becoming a certifiable Pollyanna in my early twenties, dramas lost their appeal altogether, and I only had time for feel-good movies and comedies. And true to the maxim of life imitating art, I kept trying to cast myself into a feel-good life, or at least a comedy (which I may have very well succeeded).

While I knew the common wisdom that great comedians are also adept at drama, I also knew, at least intellectually, that the obverse is not necessarily true. That is, the kings and queens of drama are not necessarily good comedians. However, given how I have cast part of my life with the kings and queens of drama--people who scour interpersonal interactions for personal slights and who have an uncanny knack for making sure no good deed goes unpunished--, I must have somehow thought that I could, as a trusty sidekick, help bring out the inner comic or the inner hero, as found in feel-good movies.

I have come to realize that that--bringing out the inner comic or inner hero of others (or as one friend puts it, my tendency to try to "pull the unconscious, injured and bleeding off the field", uh, stage of their childhood trauma dramas)--is a pipe dream born of my inner Don Quixote, and a recipe for drama in and of itself. While not altogether impossible (and perhaps best done as a professional in a professional setting with a willing subject), bringing out the inner comic or hero in others is impossible enough that it's time for me to get a good bead on the rules of drama so I can better spot drama queens and kings, and um, head in the opposite direction.

It's also time for me to turn my attention to and take a fresh look at the characters in comedies and feel-good movies for the lessons to be learned there. What I have come to discern thus far is that most good, feel-good movies have many of the same elements of dramas except the characters are more upbeat and good natured about whatever happens, tend to have the ability to perceive and eventually acknowledge misunderstanding, are more accepting of their own and others foibles, and often learn lessons that they can and do apply to life.  And in feel-good movies, characters face hardship and tragedy head on--i.e., they learn that they cannot escape from suffering in this life--, displaying the sort of character most of us would like to have and/or perhaps aspire to having.  Characters and people who take responsibility for themselves and either know or learn how to say "YES!" to their universe.

Without further adieu, I bring you...

The Dozen Drama Rules (or How to be a Drama Queen):

1. Be vague, leave important things unsaid, and if provided with the opportunity to speak your mind, don't.

2. Assume that others are inconsiderate at best and are, more often than not, trying to hurt you.

3. Don't waste any effort trying to resolve ambiguity because every character has an agenda, an ulterior motive, something nefarious to gain by using you.  

4. Never assume that the offending party could have a good reason for what s/he does otherwise you would not find him offending.

5. Pouting, withdrawing, and giving looks intended to kill are most definitely preferable to good humor and good graces.

6. If someone tries to talk with you about tension between the two of you, at best pretend there is no tension or say something pithy or bitchy.  By all means, forget expressing your real concerns, and give the person a cold shoulder for her efforts, stew, or better yet, storm off in a huff.  

7. If you decide to speak with someone to ease tension between you, be prepared to quickly abandon your efforts because you know going in that the other person really is to blame for the tension between you. Always, always remember this if you forget all the other rules: Someone else is to blame.

8. Lie, particularly if it benefits you; by all means, cover up, as honesty is for wimps.

9. Cut your nose off to spite your face... this works every time.

10. Sweep things under the rug AND hold grudges no matter how silly--even if you know the grudge was born of misunderstanding--, and by all means, do not see the humor in life. (Everyone is laughing at you instead of with you anyhow.)

11. Be assured that the world revolves around you.  

12. Decry drama, but don't become involved with someone who is a straight shooter as she lacks mystery.  (I have mastered this particular rule.)

13 (of a Baker's dozen). If you are a straight shooter, never become involved with another straight shooter lest you avoid the precious drama of life. Without at least one drama queen, a drama would not be a drama.  There would be no intrigue, no reason for watching.

Then again, by releasing the drama queens from your life--whether they are loud and controlling, sullen and self pitying, suspicious and paranoid, sly and manipulative, or quiet, grudge holding passive aggressives--, you just may find that you have a feel-good movie or comedy on your hands.

Leave it to a television program set in another country with foreign accents that I find difficult to understand to make these important rules clear to me.

* * * * * follow-up essay: Don't Marry an Axe Murderer * * * * *


Addendum: I wrote this essay in the fall of 2009 (sans a tiny wee bit of editing), about 9 months before I was diagnosed with Asperger's. That diagnosis helped me better understand why I've had such a difficult time coming to grips with this particular life lesson: I expect people to be honest, kind, and super rational despite occasional evidence to the contrary (and if you remember my blog The Definition of Crazy, you know why my psychologist lovingly and jokingly labels that sort of thinking "crazy"). 


This particular essay was born of frustration with the human condition in general and all of the unnecessary drama that unhealed childhood pain, irrational beliefs, fear of conflict, and poor communication foster.  I include my own inept efforts--my Asperger-related difficulty with interpreting signs that suggest a relationship is going off the rails--in this frustration.


Though I understand the dynamic, I don't really understand being stuck in drama as a way of life, and I usually say, "Life is dramatic enough without us contributing to the drama."  I have finally learned that one way not to contribute to someone else's drama is to steer clear of people who are so caught up in their childhood trauma dramas that they cast around for people to play leading roles even if unwittingly.  I've learned a hard lesson: Even if you have been cast in a good role, when, ignorant of your assigned part, you depart from the director's script, the director can choose to cast you in the role of a villain.  (And more often than not will do just that.)


About this my friend Michele (not my ex) blessed me with the following wise counsel:

Do not be reeled in... you are not a fish nor an actress in someone's play. When people more than once show you who they are, I have learned the hard way (I am part Polly too) to believe them. They are showing you who they are. [And they are] taking up your time and space that perhaps could be taken up by a better type of person who may walk into your life.... I lived the years where I gave everyone a zillion chances because I didn't want to be mean. I out grew it, though I try not to outgrow kindness like you. We just have to be more selective. 

Amen.