“Mbu” in the dating world, there’s now an epidemic of people dreaming of partners and relationships with “no drama”. The biggest victims are men. It’s understandable that people want joy, laughter and happiness in their relationships.
But then those who use such phrases want something that doesn’t exist: a problem-free partnership with someone who has no life experience. Question Is “Are they looking for a partner who never gets angry or afraid or sad, who never worries about thier family or struggles in her job?”
It’s hard to define “drama” it is so vague. That makes it a worthy successor to what people of the 80’s plus called “issues”: a label capacious enough to include people with severe personality disorders whom you might be forgiven for wishing to avoid but also everyone who has displayed any human emotion other than smiling all the time.
So, by demanding “no drama”, one get to characterise one’s fear of difficult emotions as any simple matter. Of course you don’t want to date somebody with, you know, issues! On the other hand, good luck finding a fulfilling relationship if you will only consider people with no issues.
The most sympathetic approach for these drama-avoidant person is try online dating. Romance, like much most things these days, comes with the promise of infinite possibility. With love on the Internet if this particular match doesn’t work out, there are countless fantastic alternatives on standby.
The promise of true love might not be true the only advantage is one might meet many attractive women or men. The down side of this belief is that even with high body count and in this environment where filtering is out the prospect one is at risk of being exposed to someone else’s emotional struggles is certain making some victims soulless.
So why choose a challenging experience of meeting a person to fall in love if a fun one seems like an option? Sure, the challenging experience may ultimately prove more meaningful, but it’s still a big ask.
It’s a mild version of that phenomenon where people have a brush with death, through illness or accident, then say it was the most meaningful experience of their lives. Fair enough but even so, few of us would choose that path if we thought we could skip it instead.
The problem here is the collision of a timeless truth that what we think we want isn’t always what’s best for us with a modern the revolution of convenience makes it so easy to get what we think we want.
A decade or two ago, it didn’t matter so much if you couldn’t handle negative emotions in others if you wanted a relationship at all, you would have to learn to cope. These days, when it takes willpower just to go and meet a friend instead of staying home. How much more willpower does it take to voluntarily submit to the risk of difficult feelings? You still should, since it’s the only way to fulfilment.
