There were a number of points in my life, most well after college, where I realized that most of the drama that I encountered was caused by specific people. I know this sounds like common sense, but the easiest way to avoid drama in your life is to avoid people who bring it to you. I'm sure that can be hard at times, because sometimes they're people you work with, or consider your friends, or perhaps they're even family. Still, it pays to keep dramatic people at arm's length.
This is probably something I should have learned in college. I had a close friend that turned out to be a total psycho and pathological liar. Things seemed all good when you hung out with her, but she would let little bits of (alleged) drama about her life kind of creep in at times. (I think this may in part be because she wanted the attention of a mutual friend, but that's mostly unimportant to the story.) She couldn't keep up her grades, and would show up to class sometimes with a bruise or a black eye or something, from an old boyfriend she said. It was weird, but I guess my naive 20-year-old self felt bad for her.
Eventually the mutual friend left town, and she dropped out of school (or was kicked out, I don't know). That was pretty much the last I saw of her. I would later find out that she had implied, or maybe outright told people, that I hit her. That might have been her undoing, because some of those people at least started to see that things didn't add up when I was very obviously somewhere else, like on the radio or on duty as a resident assistant.
It was crazy how different that next summer was when she was gone. There really wasn't any drama to be had, and it would be a few years before I realized that it was likely because she was no longer around. Since then, I've had a ton of interactions with people that involved drama or misery, and I've made the very conscious choice to simply avoid them. I know some people have suggested that I think I'm too good for them or something equally absurd, but no, I just don't want to go where the misery is. Drama is a time suck.
I'm not suggesting you need to avoid all conflict or ditch your BFF because you had a disagreement. That's certainly a part of real life, and you have to deal with it. But if you encounter people who display a pattern of drama, steer clear. You have better, more positive things to do in the world.
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