To find people who like making a three act tragedy out of everything v annoying

[arabesque]

One of my colleagues does this and she's getting on people's nerves. Last week her American cousin's husband died suddenly. Very tragic, obviously but my colleague barely knows her cousin and had only met the husband a couple of times. However, on Friday she wouldn't come to another colleague's retirement drinks because 'given her family bereavement it wouldn't really be appropriate and she didn't want to put a dampener on things'. I mean, FFS. Two colleagues have lost their fathers in recent months and she's making more of a fuss than they did.

Last year her mother had her credit card skimmed and this colleague went on as if the woman had been mugged at knife point, talking about how 'shaken up' the whole family were and 'you never really think it will happen to someone you know, do you'.

She took a day off work when her sister was having her appendics out (op in morning, home that afternoon) because she'd only be 'worrying and no use to anyone'.

AIBU to wonder how she will ever cope if she has something serious to cope with and also to feel that there are people in work with real worries and traumas and she should get over herself and stop being such a drama queen?

Thats awful cat!

The only time my ILs ever show any enthusiasm or interest in anything is when something goes very wrong on other peoples holidays. They are very flat negative people but on hearing of cruise boats capsizing or virulent food poisoning they kind of come alive. When that poor couple got taken hostage by Somalian pirates MIL would keep bringing it up particularly as she was of the opinion that It Was All Their Own Fault.

I have a couple of family members who continually post cryptic/passive aggressive status updates of the 'you can't break me, no matter what you do' variety. It's incredibly tedious.

What annoys me more is that idiots other people respond to this attention seeking crap with 'what's happened hun xxx'. They'd eventually stop doing it if everyone ignored them. People of FB: do not rise to their bait!!

My DM is a DL of the highest order, but truly believes she is not.

So we're always hearing about the constant, dreadful pain she's in, or the terror she's feeling, or the misery of being an unappreciated excellent mother/friend/daughter/wife, or about her 'long-running feud' with her next-door-neighbour, which drains her- but five minutes later (after being ignored or listened to with a polite smile) will declare that she never tells us about the afore-mentioned pain/terror/misery.

And then to cap it all, she's a black catter as well, so a conversation will go thus:

DM: How was the birth? (this is an opening gambit- she pretends concern but is really just waiting for her chance)

ME/DSIS: Well, it was ok. Bit sore, you know.

DM: Really? I thought I was going to die when I gave birth!!

ME/DSIS: Really? All six times? (eye-rolling)

DM: Oh yes. I was in utter agony! Honestly, I've never said so before, but I really thought I was going to die!!

and so on, and so on...

People who do it in person are really annoying as well:

DL: Oh, NOO.

Everyone ignores her

DL: OH SHIIT

Everyone ignores her

DL: I don't BELIEVE it!!!

Everyone resignedly: What's happened.

DL: I've left my PHONE in WORK!!!

Ah yes - I have a drama llama in my life as well. I ignore & do a lot of changing the subject. And y,y things that happen outside her family are nothing, while anything in her family is the worst possible tragedy. It's very tiring.

Oh yes. The housemate who moved in and told me about the horrible text messages she was getting from her old housemates because she took a laundry basket that they claimed was theirs. She then constantly dropped it into conversation that she was a witch and that she'd spent most of her childhood in a wheelchair. After about 3 months of living there she went ballistic at me via facebook because I always got home late and made loads of noise. If she'd mentioned to me once that I was being noisy when she was trying to sleep I'd have made more of an effort to be quiet - I stupidly just assumed that since she'd never mentioned anything and I'd never heard anything from her room that I wasn't making too much noise.

She then accused me of all sorts of crap and had her boyfriend ring me up to threaten me. She also claimed to have turned everyone in our local against me. Our landlady and my other housemate both wanted her to leave but we couldn't get her to go so I had to leave instead. I had to sleep on my mate's sofa for a month before we could get a place because I was too scared to sleep in the same house as her. After I came to get my stuff she started a campaign against me because she'd decided that my casserole dish was her's. I had to tell her that I was about to change my number because she was still texting me several times a day about it two months later.

I was supposed to put up with all of this crap from her because she had bowel cancer as evidenced by her cutting her hair short.

And she also had coeliac disease despite sometimes eating pasta which meant that she could eat our food but we couldn't eat her's in case we got gluten in it.

Yes, thanks to the poster who introduced 'black catter'. Brilliant.

Anything to add to my mental armoury when dealing with the DL in my life.

Love the 'black cattery' description, must remember that. The thread reminded me of an ex-colleague, who was perpetually in the throes of a drama of some sort. I remember one time, another colleague's dad died. He had been in hospital, but died quite suddenly, and due to hospital error, the family were not contacted immediately. So they went in, to visit, and were naturally very shocked and upset to discover that their dad was dead, and that they had not been there, and not contacted, even after it had happened. My DL ex-colleague immediately started holding forth about how SHE would feel, if it happened to HER. I gently reminded her that it had just happened to another colleague, and we should be thinking of her, and doing whatever we could to support her.

I also like the analogy earlier in the thread about how some people are drains and some are radiators, brilliant.

Grief junkies

Dubjack - what did she say?

I'll admit to being a bit of a drama llama about "oh no I've left my phone in work" or "oh no, run out of milk". I am a creature of routine so the small things upset me!
I hope I'm not a drama llama about the bigger stuff though - I have a fairly undramatic life, am very grateful and would quite like to keep it that way.

(Whoever mentioned meningitis though, I also had a weightloss comment after meningitis. Saw a friend for the first time having nearly died and she said "I hope you're not going to pile it all back on again". I was )

oooh just noticed that "nearly died". I did, honest, or at least I think I did, I was unconscious for most of it and I didn't like to ask my mum the details after...