The Art of Ignoring
18 February 2008There’s a piece of advice that I tried for YEARS to get my oldest daughter to learn but never succeeded. It’s advice that I’m sure every parent in the world has tried to impart and probably has had as much limited success as I did. The advice: Ignore your little sister and she’ll stop bothering you.
In daughter #1’s defense, daughter #2 was very talented in the annoyance department and also very persistent! I never managed to 
get daughter #1 to ignore her sister and many a loud fits of indignation followed. Daughter # 1 did become quite inventive in her suggested methods of punishment however.
The reason I was thinking about this again was that a girlfriend of mine, who’s old enough to know better, is having somewhat of a similar situation. For her, though, it’s an ex-girlfriend of her current significant other.
Seems the ex (let’s call her Drama Queen) likes to stir the pot. I was there for one occasion when she kept going on about how he, the ex (let’s call him Clueless Dude) used to be when they were together. On and on she went about how different he is now and how she’s not pleased by the changes. Now keep in mind they’ve been split up at least 3 years and she’s been with another guy for at least 2. Of course the implication is that now that he’s dating my friend he’s gone down some terrible path of destruction. My friend gets her knickers in a bit of a knot and starts defending by saying how he’s doing the things he wants to do and so on. I watched this develop for a bit and then got tired of the drama so the next time Drama Queen started her sentence with “When he was with me…” I cut her off and said “He’s not with you and by the looks of it he seems very happy with that.” Oddly she didn’t take that too well and stormed out. Oops!
So I tell my friend that she needs to just ignore the witch when she starts on her pot stirring. Sigh! More deaf ears. At first my friend would get up and walk away when Drama Queen would start. DQ would just up the ante and sit closer to Clueless Dude and hang on his arm. Which of course my girlfriend would have been able to see from the bathroom with the door closed. Zap! She back at his side defending again. She proudly told me the one-liners she’s zinged at DQ and the comments she’s ignored. Every time she tells me the story it ends with the same sentence…”She still does it, whyyyyyyy?”
Sigh!
The trick is simple, you just can’t give a crap. Drama queens are predators, as soon as they sense weakness they go in for the kill. Care and you show weakness and that makes you dead meat.
As for my friend, unfortunately she cares so now we are working on “fake it ’til you make it” as her back up plan.
Option B: Ask her if she’s gained weight and smile.
Take care!
ps. The ex blows off his girlfriend with “Stop being jealous, she means nothing to me” so that’s why he get the dubious title of Clueless Dude.
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