Drama Neighbor

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Drama Neighbor lives on the third floor. She’ll probably wind up with a more specific nickname at some point. That’s part of the neighborhood intel that my husband and I have shared everywhere we’ve lived. There was Crazy Megaphone Guy and Corvette Guy, Cougar Lady, Mr. Crabapple, Raspy, Whistler, and oh so many more. We know intimate details about all of these people because THEY ARE LOUD. They all shared a tendency to conduct their personal business in plain air, on the porch, on the lawn, in the driveway, in the street, or anywhere they happened to be when the mood struck. It’s surprising how people seem to forget that their private conversations are audible to others who are only a few feet away. There’s no easy way to close your earlids.

I first became aware of Drama Neighbor at 8:20 AM on a Thursday morning. I was working. Usually our building is pretty quiet in the morning, because everyone is either at the office, or busy being a quietly grown adult person. Our complex appears to be about 80% Millennial and 15% retiree, with very few tenants in their forties like us. It’s kind of like a dorm, if all the RA’s were grandparents. There’s the occasional late-night giggling foray down the hall, and our dog delights in finding stray bits of popcorn, mixed nuts, and other spilled snacks. {SCHLORF} I could have assumed that Drama Neighbor is in her twenties, but the content of the conversation more or less confirmed it.

To sum up: She’s upset at him because they were supposed to move to the West Coast together, and now that she’s relocated he’s backing out. She refuses to accept that he has any valid reasons to want to break up.

I was able to piece this together pretty solidly after the two-day, multi-hour telephonic sobfest that Drama Neighbor conducted on her porch, about 20 feet above my head. Swearing, wailing, shouting.

(Our complex lacks air conditioning, so most of us leave our sliding doors open day and night. This explains the eventual intervention of Sensible Third-Floor Neighbor Lady, who finally asked, after about ninety minutes: “Could you take that in the house? Please?”)

Choice quotes: “I *sob* am a strong *sob* and powerful woman!”

“I don’t even surf, I just sit in the water and cry!”

I was sure they were going to break up after the sudden break into the part of the conversation that went: “You know what? I wish you the best.” Shift into compliments. But then it went on for another hour, and continued into the next day. Still on the patio, despite her next-door neighbor’s plea for a little dignity.

Then it continued into tipsy late-night rants to visiting confidantes.

This is the other way you know Drama Neighbor is so young: She has the stamina to be swearing and crying on the phone at eight in the morning, and then stay up swearing with her girlfriends on the balcony until midnight.

End exposition. Now we explain exactly what is meant by ‘drama.’ Drama is a pattern that is instantly obvious to those who have learned to see it, yet somehow it is invisible to those who suffer from it. Well, those who suffer first-hand. Second-hand drama still has pernicious effects.

Drama is any unnecessary social transaction that was initiated, consciously or subconsciously, with a desire for conflict. Drama might include giving someone a piece of one’s mind, a desire for closure, revenge-seeking, spreading gossip, or the simple inability to walk away from an unsuitable relationship. That’s the root cause here.

A sadder but wiser person will know from the beginning that a cross-country move is one of the classic transition points that calls for a breakup. It falls under the category of the Game Changer. The situation under which the relationship was developed has now changed. The contract must be renegotiated or closed. All parties involved have to assume that the relationship is not sufficient to survive that transition, because the alternative would be long-term partnership. Marriage or reasonable facsimile thereof. If the couple were so well matched that marriage or facsimile was inevitable, they would already know. Any sense of uncertainty or indecision around the long-term commitment is an automatic sign that it ain’t there.

Like, are you indecisive about cilantro? No, you are not. How about chocolate? Again, not indecisive. You know what you like, and so does the other person.

Drama Neighbor is still so young and inexperienced that she didn’t see her upcoming Long-Distance Breakup as predictable.

The other thing that’s predictable about breakups is that they have to be scheduled. No fair breaking up with someone in the weeks surrounding major holidays, vacations, or other events that require travel, meeting families, gift exchange, etc. If the gentleman wanted to be kind and respectful, he’d have to expedite this unfortunate business of the breakup well before Thanksgiving. He thoughtfully gave her enough time to meet someone else, maybe even be available for a quick rebound flirtation at a Halloween party.

Maybe he isn’t a gentleman at all. Maybe he’s a selfish, inconsiderate narcissist or serial heartbreaker. In that case, no loss! Good riddance, bud.

Another predictable feature of the breakups of the young and impressionable is that they don’t realize how it looks to demonize your ex. If she’s so terrible and you’re so great, why were you together in the first place? Whatever happened to the “star-crossed lovers, never meant to be” trope?

One day in my late twenties, I realized that I had a pattern of always being in a long-distance relationship. It struck me that I had a lot to gain from this. I got to be with someone who was always glad to hear from me, always in a romantic mood, and always on his best behavior when we got together. At the same time, he was usually out of my hair and I was free to lounge around reading and indulging in my bachelorette habits, like eating cereal for dinner and cake for breakfast. I started to wonder what it would be like to love someone and live with him in the same zip code on a daily basis. Boom, remarried at age thirty-four.

There’ll be plenty of time for Drama Neighbor. Time for her to meet and date various other people. Time for her to discover that none of them are going to have much patience with her habit of shouting, swearing, hurling insults, sobbing loudly, and generally being willing to make a big embarrassing scene in public. We speculate that she must be very beautiful and talented, or the price of talking to her would simply be too high. I mean, we don’t really want to be in a conversation with her, either; it just keeps happening.

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