Daily Archives: September 21, 2010

1. Drama queens (or kings; this is certainly not restricted to the fairer sex) must live life as if all the world really were a stage, and the spotlight were perennially shining upon them. Any event at any time of the day can be cause for Drama – no happening is too trivial or small. What the rest of the world shrugs off as minor irritants, the drama queen must turn into grand Shakespearean tragedy. The milk boiled over! Oh the horror, the horror! You missed the bus! The agonising pain of it all!
2. What drama queens needs most of all is, naturally, an audience. In any emotionally charged situation, they must find a way to be the centre of attention, whether it’s warranted or not. In other words, become the bystander who bursts into hysterical sobs or faints away dramatically at the scene of an accident or crime and has to be comforted/sedated/revived, etc. (while the actual victim sits huddled sadly on the sidelines). Or the guy throwing a massive temper tantrum for having been kept waiting for 15 minutes at a government office, while about 100 others around him have been waiting in quiet resignation for the last several hours.
3. Perhaps the greatest pleasure in a drama queen’s life is the re-telling (and re-living) of these moments of great personal strife and tragedy. An audience, therefore, is once again a prerequisite, and the more incredulous, the better. Because with each telling, the tale must get more and more improbably dramatic, and the drama queen’s own role must get more and more tragic/heroic, until it loses touch with reality altogether. Being a stickler for the truth is a strict no-no.
4. That’s why drama queens must always have their own posse (P. Diddy has nothing on them) – after all, they need to have a mobile audience unit with them at all times to provide round-eyed responses to their stories and/or splash cold water on their faces when the histrionics go overboard. And what’s in it for the posse, you ask? Well, they revel in all that constant drama – It’s like being part of a real life soap opera, and the gossip never runs dry.
5. When drama queens/kings run short on ‘real’ audience members (even the posse tires at times), they can turn to the virtual. The possibilities are endless online – dramatic Facebook status updates! Cryptic tweets about (vaguely hinted at) tragic events! And to the big one, darkly emotional diary entries on the blog! And soon the Internet audience is clamouring for more. What could be more satisfying?