One of the most common items I see listed under men’s “What I’m looking for” area in online profiles is “drama free.”
It makes me scratch my head wondering why it’s so common.
I guess some women (and of course, some men) live a life full of drama. The bad kind that comes from obnoxious exes, demanding baby daddies, overdue bills, kids running amok, overbearing bosses, to name just a few.
It’s understandable that a man would not want this stress added to his life from a woman he’s dating. I wouldn’t like it either. I hate dealing with people whose lives are a mess, even if some of that mess is not initiated by them.
But we all have setbacks. It’s not the setbacks, but how we deal with them that makes our life full of drama or not. I know some people have little control over their some of their circumstances, but you always have control over how much negative situations affect you.
For example, a gal pal has an overbearing, inappropriate boss. The woman boss spends hours on Facebook each day, posting pictures and commenting on her friends’ pages — even though it’s against company policy. She also reads aloud x-rated texts from her boyfriend — in front of my pal.
My friend has a lot of stress around this as she has to do a large part of her boss’ job since her boss is goofing off so much. She’s complained to HR but they say they can’t do anything unless the allegations can be proved.
The only thing my pal can do is work to not let it get her blood pressure up.
I know it’s not easy to remain unruffled by challenges you face. As you get closer to someone you’re dating it’s natural to share your concerns with him. Yet men are wired to want to fix things, especially if they care for a woman. So your drama signals to him he must fix it, even if you didn’t ask him to. If he feels he can’t fix it for you, he feels emasculated.
Look at your life objectively — would someone looking in think you had a lot of drama? If so, how could you reduce it? If you can’t reduce it, then you can at least reduce how much you talk about it with someone you’re dating. Be conscious of what you share as you don’t want to overwhelm anyone with life’s dysfunctions.
Whenever a man I’m starting to get to know asks me how much drama I have in my life I ask him to define what he means by drama. I have no baby daddies, no bill collectors, no overbearing exes. However, I do have the drama of being asked to work with orphans in Cambodia, or to join a group of Americans helping kids in Turkey learn English. To me that’s drama, but the positive kind.
What’s your definition of drama? How much of it do you have in your life?
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