Dimming The Klieg Lights On Drama Queens And Kings

by admin on May 16, 2012

A few years ago, my ex-sister-in-law, Jennifer, committed a what I consider to be an extreme breach of etiquette. My ex-husband and I had just returned from a trip to visit his family and I was back to work on Monday. When I had gotten to work that morning, I had a misunderstanding with two co-workers. I ended up venting on my blog–probably not the best idea, but nobody at work knew about the blog. Still, I made the post pretty general and non-specific. Jennifer apparently took it as I was talking about the family and proceeded to call my other sister-in-law and my mother-in-law to tell the story and apparently blow it completely out of proportion. She also said that I had said something rude to her dogs, which I didn’t! She also misunderstood that. My mother-in-law was upset and my ex-husband basically asked me to apologize to his mother. Nobody would listen to me that Jennifer misunderstood and that it wasn’t what it seemed. I ended up shutting down the blog and did not speak to her for a long time. Even when I did again, it was strained. Am I wrong in thinking that she could have stopped all that by asking me a simple question about who the post was about?   0424-12

One of my pet peeves in life are drama queens who ramp up the family drama needlessly. It’s as if the drama queen or king is just lying in wait, like a stalking tiger, for something to happen so they can bounce on it, maul it and leave it a bloody mess that someone will try to clean up or the victim crawls off mortally wounded.   Drama queens don’t care for the truth as this will often diminish or extinguish the drama entirely.  It’s all about the drama as if they need the emotional angst it generates to survive.

Drama queens in families will use it to create barriers between family members and new spouses so that they never feel welcomed into the family.  It is a powerful tool in the passive aggressive manipulator’s arsenal.

The way to deal with a drama queen/king is to set the parameters of how they will relate to you very early in the relationship.

1) Become a person who refuses to listen to family, work or group gossip.   A drama queen/king NEVER tells their intended victim what their issues are with them.  It always makes the rounds of the grape vine first behind the person’s back.  If you refuse to listen to gossip, you become a roadblock to perpetuating more drama.   My question upon hearing some fresh gossip about another family member is to ask, “Have you talked with So-and-So about your apparent offense against him/her?  (No.)  I suggest you speak with him/her soon to resolve your obvious offense.  If you do and the problem is not resolved, I will be happy to mediate a resolution between you two for the sake of family harmony.  Until that time, I really do not want to hear it.”

2)  Become known as a person of integrity.  Never tells lies, never validate a lie by not giving due diligence to finding out the truth.  If someone tells you a fantastic tale of evil on the part of another person and you are tempted to believe it or have it negatively affect your relationship with that person, you have a duty to get the other side of the story before it negatively colors your relationship.   Many years ago I was told a detailed story about another family member that I promptly believed without any effort to ascertain the other side of the story. For six months I was very cool towards this person until I realized what I had done.  I called the person in question, got his side of the story which included corroborative evidence that what had been gossiped to me had actually never happened.   I apologized profusely and vowed to never be sucked into someone else’s drama again without researching it further.   In fact, I will tell dramatists that I will be double checking their story for veracity if it has the potential to blow up relationships.

Relationships may blow up but let it be because a drama queen or king got exposed for being the source of the unnecessary drama as opposed to some innocent person being wrongly cast as the catalyst for drama.

{ 25 comments }

The Skinny On Gimme Pigs

by admin on May 15, 2012

I debated sending this in for a while because I’m not sure if it’s really an etiquette breach or just something kind of strange, but here it is.

Ever since third grade, I’ve been overweight. This was a result of a very poor childhood diet and relative inactivity when I was younger. I reached my heaviest around my freshman year of high school – I’m not going to post the numbers, but let’s just say I was quite far into the obese category. I had unbelievably low self-esteem, which was not helped by my crippling social anxiety and the fact that I was extremely sensitive about my weight.

My maternal grandparents are amazing people and love me very much, and obviously they noticed my poor health and unhappiness. For some reason, they (namely my grandfather) decided the best way to help me would be to take me to Taco Bell (?) and propose that, for each pound I lose, they pay me $5.

This caught me completely off-guard because I had not said anything about wanting to lose weight to them (though I very sorely did, but had too low self-esteem to really believe I could). I felt very uncomfortable at the time and kind of insulted even though I knew it was coming from a place of love. I told my mom about it, and she sent them an email to please not talk about weight with me anymore. I felt very awkward about this (you have to understand that I am probably the least confrontational person on the planet, I will go to stupid lengths to spare other people discomfort no matter how much discomfort it causes me, not out of selflessness but because other people being uncomfortable causes me more discomfort than any I would suffer at my own will, if that makes any sense).

Well, my grandparents never responded, and I thought the issue was dead. Then, a year later, after picking up a smidgeon of self-esteem, I began to eat healthier and exercise more and started to drop some weight. We had scheduled a trip in December of that year with my grandparents, and at one time during the trip, my grandfather pulled me aside, beaming from ear-to-ear, and said that I looked amazing and asked how much I’d lost. At that point it was about 20 lbs. He pulled out a $100 and handed it to me.

You have to believe me that I absolutely did not start losing weight because of the monetary incentive (if anything, thinking about it just made me uncomfortable and embarrassed), and that I thought they had backed off for good. And, for the record, I firmly believe that they were not intentionally drudging up an old issue my mom had asked them not to continue with, but simply did not get the email. They have an old computer and are, well, not very good with them, so it’s reasonable it would have been lost in transit.

My social anxiety and non-confrontation-to-a-ridiculous-extent becomes relevant again now, because as he keeps asking me how much I’ve lost (it’s up to 85 lbs now, so you do the math), he keeps paying me. He is so proud and happy when he does it, and I really don’t have the guts to tell him it makes me a bit uncomfortable.

I don’t know, I guess the point of this is, am I breaching etiquette by not telling him? Does my accepting the money make me a gimme-pig? (I’m currently saving the money I’m getting for college, as I’m starting in the fall.)  0426-12

Who initiates the transfer of money is really what defines a “gimme pig”.    Gimme pigs “pull” the money from others by asking for it in some manner or by having an expectation that they are owed money.  Your grandparents initiated the offer and grandpa is the one “pushing” the money to you so, no, this doesn’t qualify as gimme pig behavior in my opinion.

When I receive unexpected money from someone, such as when I offer my coordinating services for free for a friend and they give me money anyway, I do one of several things.   I donate it to a charity or put in the alms giving of my church or I save it to fund a nice party in which the generous friends will be invited.   And I always thank the giver and tell them what happened to their money.   So, be sure to thank the grandparents.

{ 39 comments }

Did I Really Need To Know That?

by admin on May 14, 2012

The other morning before going to work I dropped my car off at a local mechanic to get the summer tires installed. On my way to the location, I had stopped by a local coffee shop and was sipping my coffee while the attendant at the mechanic’s took my information.

Midway through the process, she stopped, pulled a peppermint out of her pocket and tossed it in her mouth. I thought nothing of this, why would I, until she glanced up at me and said, “Sorry, I can’t stand the smell of coffee breath this early in the morning.”     I was dumbfounded!   0430-12
 Why people feel the need to explain their otherwise innocuous actions thus revealing that there was an actual motive behind it, escapes me.

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“Teach Your Children Well” Is No Guarantee

by admin on May 14, 2012

My 12-year-old son convinced me once again that we should eat dinner at one of those “all you can eat buffet places.” Naturally, kids loves these places. It’s a carnival of pizzas, mac and cheese, ice cream, brownies, cookies, pies and more fried items than a Southern truck stop on a country road. Yes, there are vegetables and meat choices, but the competition is tough when the child is exposed to so many other less digestible but more exciting choices.

Of course, I acquiesced, as mothers do – all in the name of that precious little smile and joyful sound of, “Thanks, Mom,” that we long to hear before the ringing anthem of “Why not,” “That’s not fair,” and, “You never give me anything I want”!

So, here we are in the trough capital, herding through the stations for our selections and finally finding our way to our booth. Our table awaits with the little placard card which will alert the staff whether we are finished or not by the appropriate placement of said card during our absence for “seconds”! Taking our seat and beginning with the same set of standards we always use, whether casual or elegant dining – we place our napkin in our lap, grasping our utensils in the proper cutting position and proceed to “enjoy”, and I use the term cautiously, the spectrum of colors and textures that fill our plate.

As we engage in table conversation, I notice in the sea of chewing faces, a very — and I mean VERY — large man. In fact, my son and I are both convinced he is a Sumo wrestler.

He is with a group of about six or seven, which I presume are family, based on the similarities shared, when suddenly, he literally takes his fork and commences to stab a slab of prime rib – and I mean “stab” the entire large piece of meat in the center — raise what is surely ¾ of a pound or more of beef to his mouth, to which he begins to chew, rather knaw, off of the hanging course.

I literally thought I would just faint, but instead, I was suddenly distracted by my son when he saw the look on my face. Clearly he was afraid that my own reaction may be seen by the offender. As a professional etiquette consultant, and having been “reared in the south”, it should come as no surprise that my son has been taught proper table manners since he could pick up a 4” miniature fork from his high chair tray. I highly encourage all parents to begin at this early age, lest they have a “meat stabber” in their future. 0503-12

I rarely notice other eaters’ indelicate manner of eating when dining at a restaurant but 2 weeks ago I had the opportunity to get an eyeful when an older teenaged boy and his friends were unescapably in my line of vision.   Oldest teen male proceeded to pick his nose and wipe it absently and then pick up food with those same fingers all through his meal.   It was like being forced to watch a horror movie.   Over and over again his fingers probed his nose and over and over again he ate with those same fingers.

But I disagree that raising children to be mannerly will automatically guarantee that they will behave like gentlemen or ladies when they are older and out from under parental supervision.  All of my children were taught repeatedly to not put their elbows on the table while dining and but one of them, now aged 23,  the many lessons haven’t stuck.   I’m sure in the proper context this adult child of mine knows the right thing to do but often chooses not to in less formal situations.   Once kids reach adulthood, they are their own masters and they choose the path they wish to take.   Declaring, “I did not raise you to be a Barbarian!,” can be a humorous reminder but one has to be careful that it does not mutate into manipulation to avoid the embarrassment that one’s own kid can be quite uncouth sometimes.   I swear, I think some of my kids purposely do things like belch at the table just to see if they can get a rise from me or their father and of course they usually do get rewarded with an exaggerated roll of the eyes or dramatic sigh of resignation with whispered, “Barbarians”, under the breath.

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Feel Good Mother’s Day

May 13, 2012

A mother’s love is a powerful thing. May we all have a mother’s heart to see the special treasure not always apparent in others. I love her facial expressions as she “narrates” her story. Click to share:

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Feel Good Friday – Mother’s Day

May 11, 2012

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When You Cannot (and will not) Give The Very Best

May 10, 2012

   So, you’ve been solicited for donations to fund someone’s hobby or encountered the outstretched hand begging for you to give them money to have the dream wedding of a lifetime.  Or your teenaged nephew is a serious gimme pig with no sense of gratitude whatsoever.   Or you’ve just received a birthday or wedding invitation [...]

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Burlesque Begging

May 9, 2012

I am a burlesque dancer, and except for rare cases like Dita von Teese, the overwhelming majority of us do not make a living at burlesque. It’s an expensive passion, with way more money going to costumes, studio and venue rentals, workshops, travel to festivals, etc. than the amount of income that comes in from [...]

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