After I finished college, I came home and fell in with a crew of friends that's strictly male. I really didn’t think anything of it until recently, when I realized that the last few years of my life have been the most drama-free of my existence.
I don’t want you to misunderstand me, and think that I’m really bashing women here: I love women! But if you think that women don’t just inherently have more drama than men, you’re psychotic. If you’re going to hang out or be involved with women in any capacity, you just have to learn that drama is part of their charm.
I don’t mean to imply that guys don’t have drama. But guy drama is so different from girl drama. Girl drama is a hysterical phone call 3 in the morning saying, “I’m only attracted to assholes, yet I’m somehow surprised when all they do is treat me badly. I need to eat chicken nuggets and cry!” Guy drama is when your friend gets drunk and breaks his hand in a mock-boxing match on the frontlawn.
Unfortunately, because I choose to date women, I’ve been sucked back into the confusing, irrational, mind-fuck world of Girl Drama. That’s what I’ve been dealing with the last two days…and a good reason why the last two posts are late.
Amy is a girl who I’ve known since she was 16. And by “known” I mean “loved.” The first time I ever saw her, she came walking into a meeting, two hours late, wearing a blue-green tie-dye dress. She had long blond hair, brushed back. And she smelled like summer rain and wild-flowers.
The problem is, no matter how bitter and dramatic I get, I always end up back right where I am in this story: powerless, defenseless, and utterly head-over heals stupid for a girl.
We had a complicated relationship, the two of us. She’s very much into being independent, non-conventional, and generally unpredictable. She also hates talking about her feelings—I know, I know. She really is the perfect women.
We had a weird relationship—first friends, then strictly sex-friends, then sort of dating, then not, then we’re broken up (even though we never officially dated) then we’re back together…it was next to impossible to keep track of.
We’d see each other one night and she’d tell me she had a fantastic time. Then I wouldn’t hear from her for 3 weeks. So I’d go down to see her and we’d have amazing sex, after which she’d curl up in my arms and tell me how much she missed me. Then I’d get pissed because she wouldn’t call me for another two weeks and we’d break-up and she usually sounded like she was bored through the whole conversation.
If you’ve ever been in a car accident, you know that the worst second of it, isn’t really the moment of impact—it’s the second when you know, clearly, that you’re going to crash and there’s not a solitary thing you can do to stop it. That’s what my whole relationship with Amy was. It was me being totally, absolutely ready to do anything for this girl and knowing the whole time that I was doomed from the beginning. I had to try…It would kill me to think about her 20 years down the road and think I hadn’t done everything in my power to make it work, but at the same time I knew that she really didn’t care. That’s the heart of the whole thing.
Never accept excuses for important shit. I learned that the hard way. “It’s a bad time for me.” “I need to get my head together.” “I’m not ready for that step.” Bullshit, all of it. People aren’t afraid of commitment—they’re afraid of commitments to people they don’t love. When something or someone is important to you, you don’t let anything stand between you. That’s just how it is.
When we finally ended things, months ago, it was mostly because she didn’t think I was fun anymore. Which I understand. I was knocking myself out to try to win her over to such an extant that I wasn’t even me anymore. I was some weird mutation of what I thought she wanted and my own imagination and insecurities. It was also due to me knowing that I had to move on with my life: either she was going to be my life and be with me, or I had to start the healing process and find someone new.
It’s hard to get too upset about an ending you saw coming years ago.
I was fine. I was really fine. I was super fine…until…BAM, Girl Drama. Out of no-where I get an Instant Message from little miss long-lost-love –of-my-life:
“Hey, will you come to New Year’s with me and my family?”
You have to understand that when we were together she spoke to me of her own volition probably all of twice. But I had to make all the plans, I had to call her, I had to provide all the effort. And suddenly, she’s back, after all this time extending the kind of gesture that I had wanted from her for so fucking long I could taste it.
What was I supposed to think? I really had no idea what was being offered. Was she just trying to be friends? Was this a statement that she wanted me in her life? I had no idea.
And then typical Ehren-Amy relationship: I tell her that I have to talk to her. Could she meet me that night at midnight? “Sure” she said.
And so, like clockwork, I found myself in her drive way at 12:25 with no one to talk to but that sickly ball of rejection in the pit of my stomach. She called me an hour later and said that she’d gotten caught up in a Star Wars marathon. Well, at least it was something important. Now she was tired, though, and had to go to bed.
You know, after that, I really didn’t need to talk to her anyway. Her actions said everything I needed to hear.
And that, my friends, is fucking girl drama at its absolute purest: it sucks you in, just enough to give you hope, and then casts you down again into pits of despair. It involves you doing things that you KNOW are stupid, yet you’re always crushed when you fail. And then you get up and do them again and again and again.
So tonight, I plan to eat a pint of ice-cream and then call up my female friends and harass them with drama and self-loathing. Not really because I feel that way. Just so they can finally get a taste of their own medicine.
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