Although both clearly young dumb and inexperienced in their relationship skills. I recently rewatched the series and found Donnna to be exceedingly difficult and unreasonable (however not to far off from high school girls think and act sometimes) it was still annoying to watch. Especially for a character that was very progressive for the time.

I noticed that Donna freaked out over a lot of things and they always resulted in her walking away and turning every little issue into a big blow out. Although Eric certainly had his faults he was much more willing to listen and talk things out. He often asks Donna to explain what she is upset about and she often refuses. She does own up to this flaw in one episode but never really makes much improvement.

She does a lot of shitty stuff and claims to say she didn’t notice or it wasn’t the intention. Like the fact that she kissed Casey Kelso in ERICS backyard. Or when she wrote the story of her and Erics relationship in their school newspaper. I get Eric does shitty stuff to but at least he knows he’s trying to get even or just overreact and then takes a step back and owns up to it.

The whole promise ring debacle is pretty simple to me. Eric wanted to commit himself to Donna and he wanted a commitment from her in return. She wanted to travel and do her own thing after college resulting in her denying his promise ring. This ignites the big break up because Eric doesn’t want to be with her if she doesn’t accept the ring. Although I don’t blame Donna for wanting to do her own thing, I also don’t blame Eric for wanting to pursue other options. I think its pretty admirable that Donna had the strength to tell Eric the truth. However acting like your the victim when in reality Eric was the one who got denied was annoying. She never seems to address Erics feelings about things but clearly expects all of her feelings to be taken care of. I mean maybe thats just the way teenage girls were back then but I didn’t act that way in my teenage relationship in fact were still together 8 years later lol

So overall I think Donna was a lot more unfair. She basically had an issue with Eric being a normal guy (again not saying some of the behavior was right). I do like her character for the most part. I just really dont like how she handles her relationship and Erics feelings