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Why do people like drama? When I posed this question to my friend, she was like “Lilz, you know me, I absolutely hate drama. Anyone who brings drama can go somewhere else with that.” I looked at her shaking my head. She’s the type of person who watches like “soap operas” essentially (even though she will say that it’s not actually a soap, it’s just a show, but when I see it, its all drama every moment, which makes me think of a soap) Don’t think this is me throwing her under the bus, though, because its not just her. All my friends show me videos or a movie or a book that is full of drama, yet people we say they don’t like drama. You know, probably everyone in America owns a tv unless you have like a reason to not have one, but even when you don’t have one, we can watch videos on YouTube or even with writing, we read stories, people’s posts. The most interesting things for people to watch and read is drama and intrigue. People seem to WANT something to trigger them emotionally, even if you are one of those non emotional people, you still watch drama… because it is all over everything! So really what people are saying when they say that they don’t like drama is that they don’t like drama in their own life because it brings them personally a whole slew of emotions that they are not necessarily always adept to dealing with. There’s also that expression “sometimes I feel like my life is a movie” like sure that is like everyone’s life, because movies need to be based on something relatable to the audience, same for writing. Most of my friends, too, really like depressing shit, like unhappy endings, movies where everyone dies, like anything dark you could imagine… like even my female friends. It is like I am the only one of us who watches stupid sappy romance movies, because most of my friends like horror or like shocking comedy…. My friend DB sent me a video recently of this girl flirting with a guy and in the end that same guy shoots her in the head, and I will say it was a very artistic video and clever, but I’m like all upset that she got shot! When I saw it, I could not help but think that all my female friends would have loved it…

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So, a little about me, I’m a firm believer of the saying “you are who you hang around” and I also believe that you are what you read and you are what you watch. You can say, “well, I don’t act like those crazy people on there,” sure, maybe you don’t act like the dramatized version that you see on the screen, but you can say that you have had the same negative emotions of those you see on the TV. Yes, sure, everyone feels those emotions… but not everyone controls them. I wrote something before about emotional balance. Not everyone knows how to handle their emotions. I have another friend who spent most of his life rejecting emotion, be it conscious or subconscious, he did not understand the logic behind emotions. He did not think there was a point to being emotional about something. My dog died and he was like “I understand why you’re upset right now, but it happened, you need to get over it and stop talking to me about it.” Maybe you will say “then you shouldn’t be friends with him, since he lacks sympathy” but sometimes you need people like in your life. Those who reject emotion are few and far between, but they will be able to logically analyze your situation when you are too emotional to think clearly enough to get something done. I am getting off topic… so this unemotional friend of mine recently started feeling things because of some situations that occurred to him… and he did not know how to handle it. We do not learn how to handle our emotional states from the TV because in order for their drama to sell, they put their characters in impossible situations that they never really get out of, and then next weeks episode will just make things worse. I said earlier that I only like things with happy endings, and though I do know that happy endings are not real… well, they call it the PURSUIT of happiness for a reason. If I am pursuing happiness, I’m not going to watch things with so much drama and no happy endings because that’s just going to put me in a negative emotional state when things go awry in my own life that is somewhat similar. It changes my thinking in a small way, like when things go wrong, I’ll have these thoughts: “I will never get through this” “Fuck my life” “Man, this sucks” “I’m so depressed”. Then I lose hope… so I stopped watching negative shows. I told everyone that I just “cannot emotionally handle it” which is true, in a sense. Actually, I have not watched TV since I started writing again, so it’s been two weeks, but when I was watching TV, I was watching the Andy Griffith show.

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In conclusion, I believe you are what you watch. If you watch drama, you will see more of it in your life. When people say they do not like drama, they mean in their own lives… so if you do not want drama in your life, maintain control of your own emotional state. If I am centered, and someone tries to start drama with me, I will just ignore it. For example: if someone walked up to me, screaming at me because of something I did or something they think I did. I would stay calm and ask them why they upset with me. If you stay calm when someone is screaming at you, they will eventually calm down and you can get to the bottom of why they are upset. Do not partake in drama, don’t get upset with people when they partake in drama, just avoid it, and most importantly, protect your own emotional state… and you introverts, that doesn’t mean avoid all people, because that is not going to help you. You need to learn how to deescalate situations, remaining calm when the world around you chaotic. Most of the time, things work themselves out. If you freak out when something goes wrong, sometimes you can make that situation worse. Take a deep breath, control your emotion, and move forward, that way you can be content in life and continue to pursue happiness.

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