Define drama

"I don't do drama." 

I come across this on so many online dating profiles. I see it worded many different ways, but I'd say about 95% of the profiles I read mention a preference to avoid "drama." 

I've even focused on it myself - if I message a guy who says he hates drama, I key in on that and tell him I feel the same. Which is actually true...I hate drama. (Unless it's other people's drama...I'll totally laugh at other people and their drama.)

So the other day, when I was once again locked in an internal (and by internal, I mean talking to my cat in the kitchen) conversation about why everyone other than me has someone special, somehow, I came back to this whole "drama" question. For the first time, I wondered: 

Is the problem that we all define drama differently? 

I'm not sure why I asked this question. (The cat wasn't either; he was mostly concerned with how quickly I wasn't filling his food dish.) It just suddenly occurred to me that when a guy says he doesn't want drama, what he may mean is that he doesn't want to deal with stuff like communication, sharing, compromise...you know, a relationship.

Which would mean that, to these guys, a woman like myself (who tries to talk and learn and share) must seem like the biggest drama queen they've ever met. They probably even think I'm a little crazy, what with my wanting to touch base and see how their day (or even week) went.

But maybe I should have been asking this question all along. I mean - literally asking. Maybe I need to be asking these guys what they mean when they say they want to avoid drama. Maybe instead of just assuming we agree on how to avoid drama, I need to find out what exactly it is that he's trying to avoid.

Would I get an honest answer? I'm not sure. I guess that depends on the guy. But I think the question is worth exploring. If nothing else, it'll be a more interesting conversation starter than, "So who's your football team?"

Oh, and for those wondering, yes I did eventually get the cat fed.