It’s quiet and the lights are dimmed. A candle burns on the counter. Steve luxuriates in a hot bubble bath after a long day at work and the usual first serving of evening scotch. He tries to rest his mind from the usual worries of work stress and his grown children’s lives. After a few minutes, he hears his girlfriend enter their place, finally making it home from the end of her day. She had stopped off for a happy hour cocktail with a girlfriend. They both drink daily. When she drinks too much wine, she usually passes out by eight in the evening, leaving him to watch a movie or scroll his phone and read the news online. When he drinks too much, he gets sappy and needy, and of course, she is no longer present or articulate enough to absorb his effusiveness. Infrequently, she will get irate about the tiniest issue and they will start fighting. It always ends with his tail between his legs, giving in to calm her down. He hates this vicious cycle.
Soon he hears her in their bedroom, likely disrobing from the day and preparing to come into their bathroom and wash her face. He calls out to her, but there is no response. He leaves it. He leans his head on the back of the tub with his eyes closed when he hears the bathroom door open, and she storms in wild-eyed with a large kitchen knife in one hand. “What the fuck?” he says. She coldly relays to him that she could easily stab him in the chest and kill him right now. He is in a panic, fight-or-flight mode leaping from the tub without slipping from the suds. She retreats to the kitchen replacing the knife into its block on the counter. He had put on his bathrobe and followed her, still bellowing out “What the fuck is wrong with you?” all the way.
She had long suspected Steve was cheating on her, and this evening she found out more definitive details. Of course, he denied this, begging her to reason. He relays this story to a friend expressing how she is obviously crazy and full of drama.
I hear this story, and my first thought is what about him attracted this type of woman into his life? Maybe he is the crazy one. Maybe he really cheated on her. I’ve often wondered this when men describe women as ‘drama.’ Some men need extreme emotional stimulation; maybe they had a neglectful mother. The intensity gives them a heightened sense of engagement, making them feel needed and useful. Status-seeking men like the attention being with such a woman draws to them; her cleavage or bra-lessness or miniskirt out in public implies he is the sexual alpha in the room.
When I consider it in the context of how we use social media, it is our choice. We have cultivated the threads of images on Instagram and messages on Twitter to our tastes or desires. We are attracting what we put out. I’m more of a passive observer on Twitter, but in reading the dialogue, I can ascertain this same dynamic. Lack of fulfillment in a busy daily life gives people ample time to participate and respond and debate. The professional journalism class believes it is their job to win over others with their ideas. Twitter also provides a great avenue for self-validation. We are often following accounts we already agree with; but when one debates or escalates over misunderstandings, this perpetuates the cycle of drama. Social media is not a place for nuance. Some specifically use it to be argumentative. Some specifically use Instagram to leave negative comments. It is very sad to participate in the world this way; the constant need for emotional stimulation by stirring shit up or the need to tear others down over an insecurity inarticulable in the moment; it feels temporarily better criticizing another. It all comes back to imbalance; drama is too much. This way of living in the world is how I understand someone as ‘dramatic.’
We’re all hammers seeking a nail with our thoughts. If you think THE MAN is out to get you or keeping you down, you’ll find a culprit. If you think the world is burning, you’ll read the evidence for it. If you think you can’t have what you want, you’ll make all the excuses preventing yourself from achieving it. Most dynamics in our lives require constant monitoring of what we’ve said or done which is attracting the feedback we are receiving. End of story.
There is so much good and beautiful and fun and tasty. There’s way more to enjoy than complain about.
The timing for this could not have been more relevant.