Drama
It’s been a while since I ranted, so I think it’s time to work the rust out.
Two friends come to me. One says that another said such and such to her on an online chat. The other one tells me that she said no such thing. Silly drama, and I’m in the middle of it. So I urge the first person to talk to the second, to figure out what’s what. Is this propagating the drama, or helping to get rid of it?
It seems to me that the majority of drama comes about because of fear. People are afraid to talk directly to each other about something that’s causing tension — oh, they’ll say they just don’t want to deal with it, or it’s not worth their time. Of course they couldn’t be afraid of conflict, because they’re opinionated and strong people who would never be afraid of conflict. But then they’ll go talking about it to a close friend, or a not-so-close friend, to get it off their chests. And then eventually that makes its way through the grapevine to the other person, possibly in a highly exaggerated or outright distorted form. So drama is born into the world. But if the two people would just talk to each other face to face, it could all be avoided.
Hence it seems to me that often, drama is caused by fear. Am I off-base? What have your experiences been?