BWW Blog: Take Off Those Drama Romance Goggles

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" I said breathlessly before being taken intensely into one of the most surprisingly arousing moments of my young teen years: a passionate hate-kiss from a 110 pound Jewish boy who I'd just watched down a glass of straight-up dairy milk. I wondered then what magical spell could possess such an innocent, beautiful, young ingenue in her final year of summer camp to feel so strongly for a guy who probably didn't wash his hair, but I couldn't ignore the fact that my heartbeat quickened whenever he passed me the "zap" in zip-zap-zop. I suppose I should mention that that super hot, super naughty "are you sure we should be doing this?" was merely a line in a play. Yes, I was so taken by a stage kiss that I realized precisely what was happening. I was falling prey to an illness far worse than that summer's outbreak of impetigo: DRAMA GOGGLES.

Once you put your Drama Goggles on, it's nearly impossible to take them off. Drama Goggles make that skinny, Jewish lactose addict feel like a viable option for consummation and make the beautiful hopeful actresses of the world subject to having their heart and morals stolen by a guy whose claim to fame is a mediocre British accent and a rendition of whatever the white guy sings in Miss Saigon.

It is no secret that women in theatre are sexually frustrated. Think about it: since we were old enough to understand the concept of a love scene, we were thrown into perfectly orchestrated romantic situations, with male characters only to have been imagined by a playwright. This idea is far more psychologically damaging than meets the eye, as the lines between fake love and real love can easily become muddled in an inexperienced girl's world.

All of this being said, I have a theory. I have lots of theories, however, this is the one that has picked up the most steam as of late, and it's been deemed eerily accurate by everyone I've consulted on such: straight men in theatre are graded on a two-point curve. Let me debrief you; on an objective 1-10 scale, a straight boy leaving the real world and entering a Drama Department can automatically graduate from a 5 to a 7, a 6 to an 8, a 7 to a 9, and oh yes, an 8 to a 10. It sounds rather petty and rude to be using a standard objective 1-10 scale, but let's face it; we all do it. Due to a simple lack of options and constant close proximity, what choice do we have?

Tragically, this situational altercation gives the dirty blonde baritenor in cuffed khaki pants who smells like Tide Pods and Grether's cough drops Too. Much. Power. An average-looking white boy with dark hair and a strange collection of big sweaters develops a sort of ego from having been in the one place in the universe where he would be the one to score the hottest chicks in the room. This very small but very prominent niche of Straight Drama Boys have such a warped sense of the world because of this two-point curve, that they can get away with practically anything. Girls in my department will use hooking up with the same SDB

(Straight Drama Boy; sorry, I'm just SO used to writing NJB in place of "Nice Jewish Boy...") as a point of sisterly bonding rather than a point of conflict, as we are all too aware that these small departments tend to become, for lack of a better word, incestuous.

And then we go to acting class where we have to casually pretend that the first boy to ever touch us below the belt isn't the same guy who's our partner in the "mirror" game and that we aren't crazy attached to a man who is, in reality, emotionally void. It's like a spell. Boys who you'd never think of as the type to get girls magically turn into suave players with game and a gaggle of gorgeous ladies chasing after them as they drone on about how they "really just felt that performance." It seems as though SDBs can get away with anything.

This theory needs no testing as the only true test of time has been merely existing as a teenage girl with other teenage girl friends in these departments. I came to truly ponder this theory when a friend of mine told me about a crush she had on a boy who is extraordinarily ordinary, and with my claim, she was set as straight as a real football bro; as a matter of fact, she said, "Oh my God--he is such a seven!!" Over the years, I've watched a saga of one boy hooking up with six girls at once, my best friend dedicate a semester of her time to a boy who danced like an inflatable tube man, and saw a guy who'd spent the past few weeks playing Lady Macbeth become a total babe magnet. Oh, and let's not forget the time I got in a fight with my friend in the back of an Uber over a nicotine-addicted Macaulay Culkin look-alike!

I like to think that with this incredible newfound awareness, I will never subject myself to hooking up with an SDB again, but it is just one of those mistakes that we make only to inevitably make once more. I'm holding out hope that someday, I will forget about boys who occupy their free time pondering their existence Hamlet style and instead meet a Nice Jewish lawyer or businessman, as I think we could all benefit from leaving our "bubble" at one point or another. As a matter of fact, I think we'll ultimately be better because of it. Besides, nothing gives a Straight Drama Girl more power than looking up wistfully at a real-world ten and hearing: "you had two lines in a movie? That's, like, so dope." I'm just saying.