Some Juicy Gossip About Gossip

I gossip. 

You're surprised aren't you? Well, you aren't surprised that I gossip. You gossip too. We all do it. 

You're surprised that I admitted it. 

That's because we rarely talk about gossip like we do philosophy or politics. We never talk about gossip as an idea. So let's do it.

Let's gossip about gossip. 

Until college, I spent at least one hour each evening talking to friends on the phone. I had a study buddy for every subject, and the night before any quiz or exam for a class solicited an evening phone-study session.

These phone calls blend together in my memory as stressful but intellectually stimulating conversations spanning a gamut of topics like French vocabulary lists, mathematical proofs, and examples of thematic elements in a recently read novel.

But one of these calls was much less like this, and more  like this. I remember it as if we just hung up.

My best friend and I were preparing for the next day's World History exam. Having recently discovered three-way-calling, we invited a tertiary friend, let's call her Kelly, into the conversation. 3 brains > 2 brains.

After a fruitful revision of the discovery of oil in Kuwait and the difficulties surrounding the Iraq-Iran border, Kelly hung up, leaving my best friend and me alone together.

We decided this would be a good time for us to compare notes -- on Kelly. Sitting at the foot of my bed, I jabbed away. My best friend listened, then chimed in with the additional points she wanted to add.

None of it was positive and nobody but PG&E benefited from our side conversation.

The next day, Kelly informed my friend that after hanging up with us, she picked up the phone to make another call. When she did so, she realized that our three-way call was not yet disconnected.

She got to be a silent participant in our gossip session. About her.

She wasn't angry. She was hurt and betrayed. But not angry. I was mortified (and still am). Our friendship was severed.

The most shocking part of the episode is that by the next day, I couldn't even remember the specifics of the gossipy conversation. The conversation was as worthless as the lost friendship valuable.

Gossip (n): Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.

My Friend Web

Kellygate is a good example of gossip. It is also very obviously demonstrates why gossip is bad.

But gossip -- especially as our lives becomes more complicated, more intertwined, and more mature -- is not always bad. In fact, gossip had evolutionary beginnings as a way to build social bonds, maintain relationships and warn trusted parties about social threats. As social creatures, it's only natural for us talk about our lives with other people. And most of the time, our lives involve other people who affect us in some way.

The problem is that gossip is not always as identifiable as the dictionary makes it out to be. Some situations are benign sand dunes and the others are quicksand.

One time after meeting a friend's new boyfriend, I immediately called a mutual friend to inquire about the boyfriend, whether he respects my friend, and how happy she is. Was this gossip or care?

Another time, a friend vented to me about her friend (one I don't know) in an effort to get my advice. Gossip or helping a friend?

Then of course there was the time that someone clued me in to the fact that the guy pursuing me was in a relationship. This surely wasn't gossip, was it?

The blurry lines surrounding gossip wouldn't be a huge deal if it weren't for the fact that two out of three human conversations are gossip.

I recently was disappointed to learn that two friends were talking about me. When I turned to a third party (is that gossip?) to describe the situation, she said calmly, "Maybe you're making a bigger deal of this than it really is. Do you think maybe it was out of care for you? They may have had good intentions." I had no reason to prove her wrong (or right).

So how do we identify what is good gossip and what is bad gossip? How do we end bad gossip?

My conversations with new friends are utterly gossip-less. Either because we are in trust-building mode and/or because we lack any mutual friends, it is either inappropriate or inopportune to talk about others. I come away from these conversations feeling intellectually stimulated and excited, already itching for the next one. It is refreshing to enjoy hour(s)-long periods with someone without ever talking about people in our network. It feels so pure. Like most of those study-buddy phone calls of my adolescent years.

Of course, the answer is not to get rid of all your socially connected, intertwined webs of friends and start over.

The first step is to understand when we talk about other people (an incomplete list): 

1. We are sharing someone else's good news
2. We are sharing someone else's bad news
3. We did something with or to someone or she did something to us
4. We saw something on Facebook
5. We have information about someone else

The second step is to understand why we are talking about someone in each situation. 

The intention. Is it because we are happy for or concerned about someone else? Are we bored with our conversation partner? Do we want to alter someone's perception of someone else, and if so, why? Are we avoiding talking about ourselves, whether out of self-preservation or self-awareness? 

The final step is to practice conversational perceptiveness. 

Identify sparks of malicious gossip as they begin, either with you or your interaction partner, then build the strength to inhibit their ignition. Resist the temptation to continue on and find ways to change the subject.

This is not easy. But recognizing the problem, in action, is the first step.

I wanted to end this piece with one of my favorite quotes about gossip. Funnily enough, the source of the quote is debated, two sources of whom include Socrates and Eleanor Roosevelt. This lack of clarity illustrates the exact problem with gossip: You never know what or how much to believe. My motto is when in doubt, avoid it.

But I'm going to share the quote despite my doubt around its source: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."