Do you know a drama queen? And voting that it's me doesn't count :P
I've struggled to diagnose this person and this is the only thing that seems to fit. Any little thing that doesn't go her way results in pouts and postures. A paper cut becomes a transplant operation judging by the sound effects. The gasps, the groans, the shrieks...I've never heard someone have so many sounds before.
At first, when I met this person, I would often rise to the bait: "AAAAAAH!!!" "Are you okay!?" "My tea was too hot and it burnt my tongue!" "AAAAAAAAHH!!!" "What's wrong!?!" "Nordstrom's is out of my favorite nailpolish! Again!"
It could just be age; she's in her early twenties. After a certain point, it seems we become immune to certain disasters and know how to control our paper cut outbursts. As Rob can attest, I've lost my temper any number of time over trivial issues :-) However, I know when I'm going overboard. I honestly don't think this person can tell.
Once, I went shopping with her and she was trying to match two shades of black which, as any shopper knows, can be a challenge. She knew that a certain store carried the skirt that matched the jacket she already had, so was hoping to pick it up and thereby save the trouble of holding the jacket against different fabrics to ensure the colors were the same. The salesperson made the mistake of saying, "We've never carried that skirt in this store." Before the salesperson could utter another sentence, the Drama Queen stomped her foot, her voice rising shrilly as she shrieked, "You DO have it. I SAW it YESTERDAY. It was RIGHT HERE on THIS RACK!"
This is the first time I've actually seen someone stomp their foot to emphasize a sentence. It was fascinating and horrifying. I edged away to a rack of clothes at the other end of the shop while she ranted. She was flung aside clothes on the racks, determined to prove the salesperson wrong. Eventually, the salesperson also decided to melt away from the scene and when the Drama Queen recovered from her fit, we left the store.
I glanced at her and said, "You're never having donuts for breakfast again."
She agreed that perhaps too much sugar wasn't a good thing, but never said anything about how silly it was to completely lose it in public over a skirt.
There's also the dating mystery. Before Rob, I dated off and on over the years, and the other folks in the office knew who I was seeing and when we'd broken up. We're never sure who DQ is currently seeing; she doesn't seem to date anyone. They're all 'friends.' She grinds through the male of the species in a way that I've never seen. It boggles the mind. One week she's "exclusive" with a man she's met on the internet and met once. The next week, he's passe and she's with someone else. The following week, that one too is past his prime and she's picked up another one at a party. She's fallen in and out of love with so many guys in the past year, all of them just friends, most of them she met online somewhere...all of them she'd call on the phone and chat with for hours...yet she tires of them so quickly and dumps them, Linda and I gave her a rolodex to update so we'd remember which one was which. I've never seen anything like it and it's again horrifying and fascinating.
It's also interesting to note that any conversation can become a showcase for DQ. Someone can say, "I'm going to spend the weekend on my ranch in Montana" for her to chime in something related to her, regardless of whether it's about ranches or Montana as well is irrelevant. You can time it; it's about 3 seconds for a conversation to switch from any subject in the world to become all about her.
I'm at the point now where I don't go out with this person and ignore her many squeals and yelps. Because we work at the same company, I don't want to reach the point of actively disliking her. Maybe it's too late. There's so many confusing messages coming from DQ about who she is and what she wants. My Inner Mom wants to take care of her as she rushes headlong from one thing to the next, and yet there isn't anything really needed. She seems to surface from each crisis just as oblivious and filled with drama as she was before.
Maybe it's confusing to me because I can see myself in things she does, yet my choices would be different? Would my choices be any better?
I've struggled to diagnose this person and this is the only thing that seems to fit. Any little thing that doesn't go her way results in pouts and postures. A paper cut becomes a transplant operation judging by the sound effects. The gasps, the groans, the shrieks...I've never heard someone have so many sounds before.
At first, when I met this person, I would often rise to the bait: "AAAAAAH!!!" "Are you okay!?" "My tea was too hot and it burnt my tongue!" "AAAAAAAAHH!!!" "What's wrong!?!" "Nordstrom's is out of my favorite nailpolish! Again!"
It could just be age; she's in her early twenties. After a certain point, it seems we become immune to certain disasters and know how to control our paper cut outbursts. As Rob can attest, I've lost my temper any number of time over trivial issues :-) However, I know when I'm going overboard. I honestly don't think this person can tell.
Once, I went shopping with her and she was trying to match two shades of black which, as any shopper knows, can be a challenge. She knew that a certain store carried the skirt that matched the jacket she already had, so was hoping to pick it up and thereby save the trouble of holding the jacket against different fabrics to ensure the colors were the same. The salesperson made the mistake of saying, "We've never carried that skirt in this store." Before the salesperson could utter another sentence, the Drama Queen stomped her foot, her voice rising shrilly as she shrieked, "You DO have it. I SAW it YESTERDAY. It was RIGHT HERE on THIS RACK!"
This is the first time I've actually seen someone stomp their foot to emphasize a sentence. It was fascinating and horrifying. I edged away to a rack of clothes at the other end of the shop while she ranted. She was flung aside clothes on the racks, determined to prove the salesperson wrong. Eventually, the salesperson also decided to melt away from the scene and when the Drama Queen recovered from her fit, we left the store.
I glanced at her and said, "You're never having donuts for breakfast again."
She agreed that perhaps too much sugar wasn't a good thing, but never said anything about how silly it was to completely lose it in public over a skirt.
There's also the dating mystery. Before Rob, I dated off and on over the years, and the other folks in the office knew who I was seeing and when we'd broken up. We're never sure who DQ is currently seeing; she doesn't seem to date anyone. They're all 'friends.' She grinds through the male of the species in a way that I've never seen. It boggles the mind. One week she's "exclusive" with a man she's met on the internet and met once. The next week, he's passe and she's with someone else. The following week, that one too is past his prime and she's picked up another one at a party. She's fallen in and out of love with so many guys in the past year, all of them just friends, most of them she met online somewhere...all of them she'd call on the phone and chat with for hours...yet she tires of them so quickly and dumps them, Linda and I gave her a rolodex to update so we'd remember which one was which. I've never seen anything like it and it's again horrifying and fascinating.
It's also interesting to note that any conversation can become a showcase for DQ. Someone can say, "I'm going to spend the weekend on my ranch in Montana" for her to chime in something related to her, regardless of whether it's about ranches or Montana as well is irrelevant. You can time it; it's about 3 seconds for a conversation to switch from any subject in the world to become all about her.
I'm at the point now where I don't go out with this person and ignore her many squeals and yelps. Because we work at the same company, I don't want to reach the point of actively disliking her. Maybe it's too late. There's so many confusing messages coming from DQ about who she is and what she wants. My Inner Mom wants to take care of her as she rushes headlong from one thing to the next, and yet there isn't anything really needed. She seems to surface from each crisis just as oblivious and filled with drama as she was before.
Maybe it's confusing to me because I can see myself in things she does, yet my choices would be different? Would my choices be any better?
posted by Owl Chick at 9/05/2001 08:59:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home