11 Aug Drama Comes From You, Not From Someone Else
-By Caleb Jones
“I have a boyfriend now,” she said as she took her pants off while standing in front of my couch.
I smiled. Ah, monogamy. She was a friend with benefits I had been seeing for about a year. We were getting ready for another romp.
“Please tell me this isn’t the married guy you were seeing earlier,” I said.
“It is!” she said excitedly, “He just got divorced! He just left his wife and kid and now we’re official.”
For just a second, I wondered how he would react to her having sex with me, but I already knew the answer to that.
“You’re in for a shitload of drama,” I said, shaking my head, “His ex-wife, the divorce, the custody battle over his kid, his family, your friends and family…you’ll be right in the middle of all that. If you want to hook up with this guy, then go for it. But boyfriend and girlfriend? Damn. You’re making a huge mistake. You’re going to be in for it.”
“Well,” she said, “It actually will be because he’s one of my son’s dad’s best friends.”
“Holy shit,” I said, pulling off my shoes, chuckling, “You’re in for a huge avalanche of drama. It’s going to be brutal.”
She shrugged and said, “I don’t care.”
Drama, From Within
False Societal Programming tells us that drama is something that happens to you from some external source. You’re a good person, doing everything right, and whammo! Your bitchy wife, emotional girlfriend, stupid husband or doofus boyfriend throws drama at you.
“WTF?” you scream, “Why is this person giving me drama? I hate drama! Men/women are jerks/bitches! Jeez!!!”
In other words, drama is something that happens to you. You, the innocent victim.
In my experience of analyzing many relationships with thousands of people (as well as my own relationships), I can tell you with 100% certainty that this is almost never the case.
The real story is that drama happens because you purposely create relationships and relationship scenarios where drama is likely to occur.
If you choose to consistently drive 30 miles per hour over the speed limit, that’s fine and that’s your choice. But when a cop pulls you over, gives you that $450 speeding ticket, and you go ballistic and lose your mind, you can’t blame the cop. You can’t blame your local government for ripping people off with too-high speeding tickets. You can’t complain about unfair speed traps.
It wasn’t the cop’s fault. It was your fault.
Oh, I know it feels like it was the cop’s fault or the local government’s fault, but it’s not. You purposely and consciously designed a scenario for yourself where a speeding ticket was extremely likely. If you regularly drove the speed limit or close to it, you would never have been pulled over. You may argue that the speed limits in your area are too low, and as a libertarian I’ll probably agree with you, but in terms of real logistics of your life, that’s strictly philosophical and thus a moot discussion. The speed limit is 55, regardless of your opinion about it. If you constantly drive 85, you have no right to be surprised when you get a ridiculously huge speeding ticket.
If you choose to enter into a relationship scenario where drama is very likely, you have no one to blame but yourself when the drama comes, even if it comes from some person or other source outside of you, and even if it feels like you didn’t do anything wrong.
You can be stupid like my FB, and just shrug and say you don’t care, or that won’t happen to you, or any other excuse. But when the drama comes, and it will, then believe me, you’ll care then. A lot. You’ll scream your head off about it. You’ll blame everyone else for it. Everyone except you.
I just used that FB as an example. I could tell you scores of stories like this. Too many of you men do this. I could give you so many examples, but here are a few of my favorites…
– Men dating married women.
– Men dating women who are drug addicts or alcoholics.
– Grown men in serious relationships with 19 or 21 year-old girls, who are then shocked when their girlfriends act like teenagers. (I’m not talking about FB relationships with 19 or 21 year-olds; these are perfectly fine if that’s your thing. I’m talking about serious relationships with women this young.)
– Men expecting monogamy and complete sexual loyalty from very attractive, very extroverted women, and are shocked and furious when these women cheat, or at least hang out with or flirt a lot with other men.
– Men married to unhappy, bitchy, nonsexual wives, who refuse to leave them and continue to be abused by them because they fear divorce.
– Men who don’t use condoms as much as they should.
– Men who trust women when they say they’re on the pill or “can’t get pregnant” without any verification.
– Men who experience a woman they’re dating who demands, via ultimatums, that he get monogamous, serious, marry her or have a baby with her, and then caves in to her demands because of oneitis. (How could this relationship not end up with major drama down the road?)
– Alpha Males who get into serious relationships with Dominants.
– Men who get women pregnant by accident, then stupidly double-down on the problem by marrying them. (Good Lord, guys. When do these high-pressure shotgun marriages EVER work out? EVER?)
– Men who get married (or move in with a woman) way too young.
– Men who get legally married and don’t make her sign an enforceable prenuptial agreement. (“It’s okay BD, I don’t have any money, so I didn’t need one.” Do you ever plan on having any money, you dumbass? Do you ever plan on making more money than you do right now? Jesus.)
– Cheaters. Men who promise monogamy to one woman while they’re still having sex with other women.
– Men who demand monogamy from a woman who has already cheated on them multiple times. Yeah. Like she’s going to suddenly stop. Uh huh.
– Men who promise absolute sexual monogamy to one woman after they (the men) have lived many years as PUAs or players, having had sex with 50, 80, 100, 200 women or more. Yeah. Like you’re going to suddenly stop. Uh huh. (And you think you won’t get caught? Think again, pussy fart.)
These men, and many others, are purposely creating scenarios in their lives that are virtually guaranteed to create drama. You don’t get the drama as soon as you create them; it may take a few weeks or months before the massive drama kicks in, but it will kick in, and when it does you’ll fuckin’ hate it, regardless of how happy you were temporarily before then.
If you experience drama from a woman (or women) more than two or three times a year, I guarantee you, hell, I’d bet $10,000 of my own money, that it’s because YOU created a scenario under which drama was free to seed, germinate, grow, and flourish. YOU did that. She didn’t do it. YOU did. You could have said no. You could have dated someone else. You could have structured your relationship differently. But you chose not to. Your fault.
Drama in your life doesn’t come from others. It comes from you.
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Borja @ The Single Rebel
Posted at 05:26 am, 11th August 2016I could not agree more.
Hence why my motto is ‘Your Life. Your Choice.’
Too many men out there fail to understand it is better to dodge punches instead of recovering from them.
Al
Posted at 05:54 am, 11th August 2016As well as drama with relationships, stress, in all aspects of life, is generally self induced.
Lon Spector
Posted at 06:31 am, 11th August 2016“The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Why?
Because the masses of men and women are “asleep.”
One question though, if you are of a mind to answer it:
What about when a person is attacked through no fault of their own?
Last week in Queens, N.Y. a pretty 30 year old out for a jog was attacked,
raped, and murdered. She odinarly went jogging with her father, but this
time she went alone. Her father warned her not to go to a specific area,
but she went anyway. Was she at fault, or her killer? The same murderer
did the same thing to a 27 year old 190 miles north in Massacuttes.
A couple of years ago, a 24 year old school teacher was raped and
murdered in a very brutal way in the bathroom by one of her students.
Is each case individual? Or did these people bring their deaths on themselves because they were unobservant?
Bru Ozz
Posted at 07:16 am, 11th August 2016Mr.BD!
I just had a bad if not worst ever breakup.3weeks ago.I am 35..ended up where I was at 18-19.Never thought this would happen to me again. Oh,well..Your website…Man.. it certainly did fast forward my recovery to month 4 of my usual 6…Could not be more thankful.Things here just make so much sense and stops from wasting time thinking about Disney outcomes.I read stuff here for motivation and had 7km-10 km runs every day,since she dumped me for this new Ken.3 weeks later..I am in best shape I ever was in last 15 years.Love it.Thank you for this.Sincerely.
Omar
Posted at 07:18 am, 11th August 2016Black Dragon, I’m curious. With all the drama in this woman’s life, don’t you see drama inevitably coming your way also?
CrabRangoon
Posted at 08:52 am, 11th August 2016Good stuff BD.
The victim mentality many have is bullshit-they brought it on themselves most likely. I expect this mentality from women but too many men also do it nowadays. 90+% of the stress/drama I’ve encountered is because of what was a bad decision in retrospect. If you own it that way, you also have the power to change it, even if it is painful short term (divorce for example as you know all too well).
Gil Galad
Posted at 10:02 am, 11th August 2016This is exactly the kind of dual thinking that gets people hysterical for no reason on rape-related issues. “How dare you suggest that she should have dressed differently or avoided that neighborhood, are you saying she had it coming?”, “How dare you insinuate that the victim shares the blame?”, etc.
Rapists must be deterred from rape no matter what, through punishment, unless they’re demonstrated to be unresponsive to praise and punishment (ie crazy), in which case throw his ass in a mental institution and make sure he can’t escape. There is no blame to be “shared” or distributed or whatever, there is a criminal on the one hand, who shouldn’t have done it no matter what – throw him in jail – and there is a victim, who takes no blame at all, but whom we can be justified in calling stupid or careless if there was a precaution she ignored that would have demonstrably decreased her probability of being raped. Calling out stupidity and recklessness does not mean sharing the blame or shifting it from the aggressor.
More relevant to the article: the point, I think, isn’t that women are blameless for giving drama to men. (Also, drama is a non-criminal aspect of human relationships and can’t be the object of a hard analogy with rape.) The point is that men shouldn’t expect the women they are with to behave any different from what statistics and biology-related factors make it predictable that they will behave. When it is clear that you don’t control the woman part of the equation, and when it is known that you could manipulate your part of the equation so as to minimize drama, then failing to do so means that drama is your fault. Agonizing over the woman’s responsibility and whether or not she “can’t help it because of her hormones” doesn’t change the fact that you could do something that would have prevented the drama, therefore it’s your fault your failed to take action.
Less seriously, watch what Liam Neeson says to Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins about how “none of this changes the fact that your father failed to take action”. Good stuff.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 10:36 am, 11th August 2016Depends on the scenario. If I’m a tiny woman and I go out on a date at a guy’s house who I know is a violent murderer and he stabs me with a knife, was it really “no fault of my own?”
People don’t understand that fault is not a zero sum game. Just because one party is 100% at fault doesn’t mean the other is automatically at 0%.
In your scenario, the murderer can be 100% at fault AND the woman can also share some blame for being reckless. 10% at fault? 30%? We could argue about the specific number, but the point is she’s not blameless just because the murderer is 100% responsible for his own actions.
Good question. There are two answers.
1. She was a FB, so I’m not going to get close enough to her for her drama to affect me (unless she’s a true psycho, which in this case she was not). If was an OLTR or high-end MLTR this would likely be a problem, and our discussion would be a little more detailed (and if she persisted, then she’d likely be downgraded to FB, and now I don’t care).
2. Drama, as I define it, is negativity directed at me. A woman can bitch and complain about her life all she likes as long as she doesn’t complain about me. This this scenario, I knew from vast experience that her life would blow up in her face, she’d spend her time complaining about it to me, but we’d still hang out and have sex, because her negativity would never be directed at me. And that’s exactly what ended up happening.
This stuff is very common with FBs and sometimes with MLTRs. Women fuck up their lives all the time with this stuff. Perfectly fine with me.
Me too. Fortunately I’m a fast learner and nipped that shit in the bud a very long time ago.
Exactly.
Anon.
Posted at 01:41 pm, 11th August 2016BD, big topic request:
Persistence.
I have two main questions:
1) How to be perceived as persistent (attractive quality) as opposed to needy (unattractive)?
2) When to be persistent at all? If a woman is resisting, should I put more effort into her, or should I only choose women who like me so much that such effort is not necessary?
In particular, when (or whether) should one re-engage women who have gone silent before the first date? I’ve had some change their mood regarding me greatly when I poked them after some time, so there may have been other favorable mood swings that I missed. Or just send a hundred openers to new women instead?
Ryan
Posted at 02:24 pm, 11th August 2016I didn’t read the entire post, so I’m breaking one of your rules, but I stopped because this seems just like your “everything in your life is your fault” post but applied specifically to drama. And you’re right. It absolutely is the individual’s fault.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 03:52 pm, 11th August 2016I did a podcast on exactly that topic for my membership program, and I try not to duplicate topics, but maybe I could do a future blog post on your second question.
Lon Spector
Posted at 06:29 am, 12th August 2016I think it can be said that as a SOCIETY we are on a trajectory towards
self annailation. The events of this election year show us that.
Have you ever seen a situation where the lies were so audacious and
continueous and people were just expected to swallow them?
Only in this year can a Presidential candidate with a 30 year record of
criminality give a speech in front the father of a terrorist who wasted 49
people and say it’s completely normal. Only in this year can the statement
be made: “Who ya gonna believe? Me, or your lying eyes? about 100’s of scandals?
What you’re writing about on an individual basis, has come to pass on a
National basis. How can this society hope to avoid eratication?
Where can we flee to?
BS
Posted at 07:21 am, 12th August 2016how can I terminate Drama with my parents and aunts and uncles, add sisters and brothers etc…
I f this is my fault what is the best option assuming I am Alpha Male 2.0 or that I wanna be somedays?
because Drama is Drama it doesnt matter where and when and from who… it is still Drama.
and it is not healthy to my asthma attacks.
thx BD
Vitriol
Posted at 07:34 am, 12th August 2016@Gil Galad
A significant number of men still hold on to the false assumption that they can somehow “game” their way through the fundamentals of female behavior. They’re afraid of taking your line of reasoning to its conclusion which entails that you basically need to give up on things like marriage and traditional relationships to avoid the drama and bullshit that comes with these kinds of relations. Men have been doing things like working long hours or hitting up bars to avoid their wives since long before the internet existed. This is a fundamental aspect of these relationships that was always there and will always exist. Men who still try to be monogamous or get married in today’s world are going to have deal with a lot more baggage than the rest of us who have figured this out and adjusted our expectations accordingly.
Things like online dating and hookup sites/apps, dropping marriage and birth rates, increased access to pornography, etc. (even this blog post) have shown us that there’s a significant and growing demand for people to engage in various kinds of sexual behavior outside of the confines of traditional relationships. We’re moving towards a future where people simply don’t have the time or patience for things like relationship drama, therefore we see the growing demand for various forms of information and technology that allow people to bypass this unpleasant part of life.
Tom
Posted at 07:55 am, 12th August 2016And the mangina, possibly purple blue pill guys will tell u a classic sentence, :’relationship is all about COMPROMISE.’
What’s your thought on it, BD?
I’ve never had a serious long term relationship with any women before. Should I’ve one and experience it by myself, truly? After analyzing all these knowledge and experience from many guys. I could myself intimidated to get into one.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 10:21 am, 12th August 2016Dude this is way off topic and has nothing to do with this article. Please post comments like that at my other blog, where I’ve already answered all of those questions. Thanks.
Read item #17 here.
Don’t hang around people who give you drama.
Correct!
1. There is no such thing as “purple pill.” “Purple pill” are blue pillers embarrassed they’re blue and pretending to be red when they are not.
2. If you must compromise anything non-minor in your life to keep a woman around, you are with the wrong woman. Minor compromises are fine. But if moderate or major compromises are required for her, that’s the signal that you are with the wrong woman. You need to to downgrade her ass to FB immediately and go find someone else more compatible with who you are as a man.
Always go back to the only question that matters: How happy are you usually on a scale from 1 to 10? If you’re usually at a 8 or higher (and you’re being very honest about that), then there’s no need to change what you’re doing. No serious relationships needed (in your case).
Change is only required if you’re usually under the 7.5-8 range.
shubert
Posted at 10:39 am, 12th August 2016Reading your Alpha Male book…
You make more and more sense every day.
Parade
Posted at 09:22 pm, 12th August 2016The last time I got drama it was because I was out with a chick (called A) I’d been seeing for 2+ years and a 2nd chick(called B) (this was planned with everyone in the room), and I ended up running into a third(whom we had done 3-somes with before, called C) while we were out, and I spent most of the night with chicks B and C. I had originally planned to spend time with A and B, but ran out of time to properly deal with A. She got extremely upset about it — way out of proportion to what actually happened (she had spent time with Chick D while out — it’s not like she was sitting around doing nothing) She had actually planned on spending a lot more time with me that night than I had available, and that mismatch of expectations caused the drama. I did not make any promises about who would spend time with who while out.
Was the drama my fault? I guess, because I went out with 2 chicks and ended up spending time with only one of them and a different third chick, but her response to my actions wasn’t my fault. I didn’t make her act like a child because I didn’t read her mind about how much time she wanted to spend with me while out (she could have poked me at any time and said something and I would have taken care of her — instead she didn’t make her needs known until it was too late).
I responded to the drama by drastically cutting back the time I spend with her, from one day a week to once or twice a month. (As an aside, soft nexts are useless for me; I don’t talk to chicks more than once a week to begin with. This one is every couple weeks, and no, it’s not a lack of emotional connection, she’s said she loves me etc)
Gil Galad
Posted at 03:21 am, 13th August 2016@Vitriol. I agree, good points.
DJ
Posted at 11:48 pm, 14th August 2016BD when reading the following I remembered your point on encouraging women to spend time with girlfriends in order to vent drama:
“When moms get together and complain, it’s almost like group therapy,” says Lisa Barr….. “It’s part of the sisterhood. A woman feels angry and alone and shares her pain because she needs to,” says Shelley, a U.K.-born journalist living in Tel Aviv. “……. I need to take all this frustration out on someone. And it cannot be the kid.
Then again, I can’t take it out on my husband either. Not to his face. Not if I want to stay married. So I go out for a drink and lambaste him to my mommy cohort
From http://nymag.com/betamale/2016/06/i-cant-stop-bashing-my-husband-to-other-moms-and-im-sorry.html