How do you deal with it?
Do you get hurt and angry and seek revenge and/or restitution?
Do you agree with Oscar Wilde who once said, “The only thing worse in the world than being talked about is not being talked about” ?
Or do you just ignore it?
Also, there seems quite a difference between gossip spread amongst a handful of friends or work colleagues and blabbing stuff all over internet forums. I mean, aside from the first being called slander and the second libel 😉
And where does one draw the fine lines between exchanging information, gossiping and rumour-mongering?
casa azahar 
Once upon a time I minded about gossip. I minded terribly. But then I realised that these people were paying me a compliment by finding me so interesting. (Not an especially flattering compliment, but beggars can’t be choosers.)
These days, I choose to reflect on how dull and empty their own lives must be. I also remind myself of the essential truth of the saying ‘The best revenge is to live well’.
English irregular verbs are fun, aren’t they?
I seek information
You speak freely
He/She gossips
We exchange information
You are indiscreet
They are malicious gossiping bastards.
It can be fun, exchanging information on the hollowness and pointlessness of certain other people’s existences.
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I can kind of relate to what Ivan says about being paid a sort of backwards compliment by being found interesting enough to talk about. While it’s not quite “gossip”, I’ve been going through this for a little over a year now myself. I feel sorry for this person, because this person has little else in their life other than twisted delusions and obsessions with other people. It’s sad, really.
I, on the other hand, try really hard not to gossip, which is often made difficult at the office. I’m friendly with people in various departments in addition to my own, and they all have their little animosities… people also tend to try to wheedle information out of me, because everyone seems to tell me everything, no matter how confidential it is supposed to be. I assume that’s because I tend to keep my mouth shut.
I think gossip amongst my circle of friends (RL or internet) or coworkers would probably be more hurtful than some whacko talking shit about me on the internet. Why should I care what someone who doesn’t even know me (whether a total stranger, or someone who claimed to be a friend but never bothered listening) thinks? I could, for the most part, give a flying fuck.
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Gossip can run the scale from being merely annoying to actually posing a threat to us in some way. I know you’re sick of hearing about smellfungus, but she has used her malicious tongue to try to get me fired from my job several times. And she causes me to spend hours on damage control each month. I really think I have the right to try to protect myself from her. I don’t consider it a vindictive retaliation.
In less serious circumstances, I try to distance myself emotionally from the person. I’m thinking of one person in particular who has said some untrue things about me to a couple of friends. It was hurtful, but wasn’t the sort of thing that could do me any real damage. My feeling is that if I dwell on the comments and engage this person, then I’m the loser in the situation. If I let a person make me unhappy or angry then I’m giving them control over my moods. And my physical health since negative emotions are so damaging to all of us.
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This question has come up within an Arts group I’m involved with. There was a phase when our group was in danger of falling apart due to a destructive group of people who engaged mostly in gossip. But luckily a core group of us have come together and realised what’s happening, and recognised that these people have very little creativity or intelligence and so enjoy attacking those of us that do have this. These people have now more or less left the group. But had I been attacked as an individual with no allies to turn to I’d probably have had to leave. I find gossip very difficult to cope with.
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Gossip can be soul-destroying, when it’s done deliberately and with malace aforethought.
A case in point: I got my first job, in downtown Detroit, about 2 years after the Detroit riots. We were a mixed office, and everyone got along. Until a certain older woman joined the team. Within a couple of months, it got so bad, the company was threatening to fire all of us — 18 workers, to be exact. Then we got extensively interviewed to find the cause of all the strife, much of it racial.
It seems that the woman who had joined us, and seemed friendly to everyone, was setting us at each others’ throats with gossip. She’s befriend a person, share gossip, then go gossip with the person she’d just been talking about, referring to the person she’d just talked *to*. Little digs, vicious comments tendered in a concerned manner — “well, I don’t think your makeup is too heavy, no matter what anyone says.” “I’m *know* you’re a fair supervisor and don’t play favorites with those of your race!” And on and on, most of it started by her, and made up of whole cloth.
When used by someone who is poisonous in nature, it’s brutally effective. She took an office which was essentially color-blind, and had us all giving each other the silent treatment and not working together *at all*. When the interviews were looked over and put together, Eileen’s name came up over an over, and she was the one who was terminated. But that office wasn’t ever the same again.
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I’ve also seen examples of gossip as a tool in an office power struggle. Not pleasant at all. In a way, I think this is worse than ‘general’ gossip; office gossip can stuff up a person’s livelihood. It’s not that far from the ‘poison pen’ phenomenon.
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Even minor office gossip can be really unpleasant. If people spent half the time working that they do worrying about what other people were doing, everyone would always get everything done, and a lot more quickly, and there wouldn’t be any reason to wonder why so-and-so’s desk is always clean and another’s is buried with backed up work.
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“In a way, I think this is worse than ‘general’ gossip; office gossip can stuff up a person’s livelihood.”
Quite agree. I only experienced this sort of thing once when I was working for a clothing designer in Toronto. And, weirdly, the worst culprit was the boss (the designer) herself.
It created such an unpleasant and unhealthy working environment that I finally just walked out one day without notice. There was so much gossip and backstabbing going on that I found myself (in self-defense) turning into someone I didn’t like anymore – even though I never stooped to their level I was becoming very hard and angry.
I’ll always remember that day. It was a Sunday morning (Bitch Boss had made us come in over the Easter weekend to work – unpaid overtime – to help make up for her previous fuck-ups). It was the last straw and I walked up to her and told her I was leaving and not coming back (I was her production manager).
And she started in about how she was very disappointed in me and tried to make it seem like it was my fault the production was so far behind (total bullshit, I’d been trying to get her to approve my fabric orders for months and she kept ignoring me).
Anyhow, she then said – ‘well, just let me tell you what I think of YOU for leaving us in the lurch like this …’
I cut her off, told her that I not only didn’t like her but I detested the way she treated her employees and that her opinions were of no interest to me in the slightest. And then I walked. Felt like fucking Rocky, man! 🙂
Walked out of there punching my fist in the air and suddenly felt months of stress immediately wash away … I felt totally cleansed.
And it didn’t even matter that I was suddenly unemployed. Turned out I got another job offer the very next week, which ended up making the whole thing even sweeter.
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Another thing about gossiping amongst friends …
When I lived in Toronto I had a few good friends. And they all somehow fit into various ‘niches’ in my life. For example, Donna was my ‘walking friend’ – we used to take long walks together and go to gallery exhibits. Marylou was my friend who loved going to see live music and dancing. I’d go out for dinner with Karen and out to the cinema with David. Darlene was there to visit and have fabulous meals at her home. And so on.
And while they all knew about each other, and some had even met upon occasion, none of them interacted with each other socially. And I found this very ‘safe’ somehow. Especially as it eliminated the concern about ‘gossiping between friends’.
I’ve never been a group person myself. Back in junior highschool I sort of had a group of girlfriends who always hung out together and decided then and there, after having to deal with quite awful catty and bitchy gossip and backstabbing, that I would never belong to a ‘group’ of friends ever again.
Though recently, getting involved on h2g2, meant that there were actually ‘groups of friends’ and I’ve sort of gone along with that. The result has been kind of 50/50.
Some people have turned out to be some of the most amazing and wonderful and interesting people I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet (and you all know who you are!) but others ended up doing the bitchy, gossipy, backstabbing bullshit. 🙄
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I am a dreadful person. I love gossip.
Let me explain, before you all throw rocks and refuse to speak to me. I myself would never gossip. I think it is far too often done out of nosiness or spite and not out of genuine interest in people. I am the one who sits silently in the corner and nods a lot. But, I am not forming an opinion about the target of the gossip, oh no. I am forming an opinion and learning a good deal about the gossiper. Ha. And then using all the interesting things I am learning about pettiness, spite, nosiness, jealousy, and stupidity to write. Heh heh heh. I make a point of never taking gossip at face value, never agreeing with it, never passing it on, and only joining in if it is saying positive things.
Unless it’s about my family, where I fall down very badly and gossip like a termagant. *sigh*
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Ah, but it is often said – and truly true – that you learn a lot more from gossip about the gossiper than about those they are gossiping about.
In terms of writing you remind me a bit of Graham Greene who talked about needing to have an ‘icy splinter in the heart’ to be able to look at things objectively in order to be able to write about them later on.
I listened to an interview of him talking about this, when he was in hospital for something – perhaps appendicitis – when he was an adolescent. And the boy in the bed next to him had a broken leg that somehow ended up with him dying.
And GG lay there in his bed listening to all the ‘banal’ (his word) things being said by visiting family members and he maintained this icy splinter, thinking it could be something he could use to write about later on.
Re: family gossip. I find it rather comfortable that I live at least 3000 miles from any of them. 😉
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I have very mixed feelings about gossip. As an odd-ball, I have been the subject of it far too many times. Sometimes I am just amused. Other times it was soul destroying.
As a massage therapist in the backwards eddies of the Ozarks, I have had the interesting experience of having the community I lived in automatically assume I was a whore because I was a massage therapist. I have always wondered why they thought my mother and my husband were so proud of my profession and advertising verbally for me.
The soul destroying aspect of gossip I experienced when we had a foster child, who also happened to be the brother of our adopted son, go missing when he ran away from my husband and my father when they were on a walk out on the farm. He was searched for unsuccessfully for several days, and then people started gossipping and decided that since they could not find this kid my husband and my father must have murdered him. It got very dark and twisted for a while. I have not been able to associate with that community since.
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Not even after you told them where the body was buried? 😉
That does sound horrific, hmh. Again, it comes down to either small communities or small groups of friends … within those groups there will always be someone who wants to stir things up
For reasons best known to themselves.
Rumour thrives in the soil of ignorance …
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Not even then! It has been five years, so I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was a very stressful discovery. We found out this rumor was going around when an overanxious young state trooper asked Jim if he would take a lie detector test. He rather coldly told the young man that he should go back to his office and look up his (Jim’s) name and number so he would know who he was addressing. Since Jim at the time was in the Fleet Reserve and his Top Secret Clearance was still in effect, what he was telling the kid was, “I’ve been investigated by better and more thorough people than you ever will be, Mister Wet-Behind-the-Ears.” I was busy having extremely loud hysterics outside the church building that was being used as headquarters for the search, one of the few times I have been so angry and upset that I actually got hysterical. Screaming hissy fit describes my demeanor of the time; my neighbors were shocked. They are lucky they survived.
At that point, older and wiser heads prevailed, the search party was disbanded and a couple of days later we were interviewed for the record by experienced personnel.
Fortunately, James’ body was discovered lying on a gravel bar by some fishermen during the early spring, two months after he disappeared. The autopsy revealed that he had died of hypothermia during the period of time when the “searchers” were busy trying in their amateur ways to find evidence of the “crime” rather than searching for the lost boy. I am not happy James died, but I am happy that his body was discovered in a condition where the cause of his death could be determined without a shadow of a doubt. Otherwise, the gossips would still have my 81 year old father labelled as a co-murderer along with my very wonderful husband.
As far as how I deal with gossip, I am with Reed. I listen, I take notes, I am amused, I am tutored. I rarely pass it on. I have been the victim of lies and innuendo too many times to want to inflict them on anyone else.
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Oh, sorry I made that joke about the buried body – I had thought it had all been a mistake and nobody had died.
Sorry…
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No, no, Azahar. It’s totally okay. We learned during that event that the only way to stay sane is to make jokes, really horrible ones. It seems wrong but you need the relief. You wouldn’t believe the stuff we were saying at the time it was going on. I wish I could remember some of it; it was really funny.
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I don’t see that anyone has had a go at the question
“And where does one draw the fine lines between exchanging information, gossiping and rumour-mongering?”
Could it be as simple as, if it is true, and is something you would say in front of the other parties then it is exchanging info.
If it is true or probably true but you wouldn’t say it face to face then its gossiping.
If it might be true then its rumour mongering.
Maybe 😕
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Well, I do think that exchanging information (as long as it is true and wasn’t told to you in confidence) and also expressing personal opinions, is not ‘gossiping’ per se.
Of course, it might also depend on who you have chosen to share this information and these opinions with.
If it’s with either a caring or a disinterested party, then no harm done. But if it’s with someone’s enemy, or even with a person known not to like that someone, then clearly the motivation for sharing the information becomes suspect.
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And what do you do about people who suddenly ‘write you off’ as a friend, without giving you any inkling as to why this has happened?
Do you think that they have just silently disappeared into the sunset or do you think they have made it well known to others why you have been unceremoniously dumped as a friend?
I tend to go for the rather more paranoid version myself (Nog keeps telling me I oughtta get dem paranoids removed! 😉 ) just because it’s not anything I would do so I find it very hard to understand.
So, one day someone behaves like your best friend and the next day they never want to speak to you again … without ever telling you why! What’s that all about?
Surely knowing the WHY would be far less hurtful than all the things one ends up imagining …
Has this ever happened to you? It happened to me just yesterday and I’m still reeling cos I don’t know why! 😕
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I’d sooner be told why; that way there’s at least a chance to discuss the issue or whatever it may be.
There was a case where I did ask why, and I was told why, and we discussed the matter and resolved nothing at all – but at least we tried. Though I no longer have any direct dealings with that person, at least we have some sort of respect for each other. (There’s the occasional semi-contact through a few third parties.)
On the other hand, I can think of a case where I never did find out why. My attitude to this person is, not to put too fine a point on it, that he can get stuffed.
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I suppose I tend to find personal gossip quite ‘soul destroying’ (to use hmh’s term) simply because this usually means things you once told someone in total confidence then end up being blabbed all over the place and usually in a very slanted way to make you look extra bad/stupid/etc. Clearly such people are using your past confidences as ammunition against you … I have never understood this.
It’s a total betrayal of confidence. Hell, even with people I may have fallen out with, it would never occur to me to blab their previous confidences to others. What would be the point? To me this is just not done.
It turns out that I am actually the ‘keeper of many secrets’ simply because many people do end up confiding in me. And I think they do so because they know that whatever is told to me will stay there. Not saying that I have never let something ‘slip out’ by mistake on occasion (nobody’s perfect) but I have never betrayed a confidence with the intention of making someone else look bad in the eyes of others.
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