Tag Archives: gossip

whisper down the lane

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I have written about gossip three times on this blog over the years (here, here, and here.)

As I have said before, I find people that are perfectly nice becoming collateral damage because they are judged quite literally by the company they keep, right or wrong. Or being targeted because they aren’t some cookie cutter Stepford Wife living in a cookie cutter development.

And it’s women who do the real damage here, not men. Why are women so cruel to each other? Some say it is a basic evolutionary drive of women that men don’t have. Some say it is low self-esteem. I think personally some people are just mean and have nothing better to do.

Some days I still feel as if I wear the Scarlet Letter, personally. No, not the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, although in a sense it’s similar. The Scarlet D for different. Yes, yes, shocking and sad as it may be, apparently once again I am failing Stepford Wife school? Whatever shall I do?

“People will question all the good things they hear about you but believe all the bad without a second thought.”

Well, I can tell you that increasingly I just do not care. Their problems are theirs, not mine, or yours.  Gossiping about someone because you really don’t know them or they don’t fit into a mold you decided they should fit into to make you more comfortable is just horse sh*t.  Yes, horse sh*t.

So this morning I heard about a gossip club. Yes really.  Apparently they even have a Facebook group ?   Here we are 2020 and some are still acting like an insipid bunch of 1950’s housewives?  I mean even I like to watch the Real Housewives franchises on Bravo, but y’all know that is not the real world, right?

So this group is not where I live thank the good lord but still are they for real? These “girls” gather under the guise of doing right in the community? Then do good in the community and stop throwing shade. And also? You aren’t from the Main Line, you don’t live on the Main Line, you are miles and miles away from the Main Line or anything remotely resembling what is left of it.

Dayummm, does that mean you are outed? Guess so, LOL.  Y’all are as bad as those who full body check there way into “society photos”. Never. Ever. In a million months of Sundays but thanks for the giggles.

I had to laugh when I heard about this gossip club because it reminded me when we were new to the Main Line when I was a kid.  My mother announced one night at dinner that she was invited to some sort of brown bag lunch with the neighbor women.

Now my mother was always an intermittent stay at home mom.  She worked, had a successful career. But the first few years on the Main Line was a transition for all of us, including her.  She also was a corporate wife at that time, and corporate wives had a whole different set of responsibilities, and that included kind of putting their lives in a way on hold for the corporate of it all.

My mother went to the lunch, which even I who was like 12 or 13 at the time,  found astounding. And weird.  My mother returned from the lunch somewhat shell shocked or gob smacked. Almost sputtering as to what the lunches really were about.

It was a ladies gossip club. You packed a lunch and brought gossip dessert and dished it. Shared the tea as it were. She couldn’t believe it. We all couldn’t believe it. It was the 1970’s and then we were wondering wasn’t suburbia better than a bunch of petty 1950’s housewives throwbacks?

Needless to say, my mother politely avoided future lunches…and generally speaking those women. And I remember during those early years on the Main Line one woman kept binoculars on her kitchen windowsill.  Seriously. And it wasn’t for bird watching and we will leave it at that.

It was crazy but it was real.  And even then it was destructive.  And back then there was no social media or Facebook groups or anything like that. But crap still spewed and spread like wildfire.

So here we are the 3rd day of 2020, and everything old is new again?

Aren’t we better than this?

I also have in the round about of life heard tell of another friend of mine being targeted. And why? Because she is very independent and essentially tells it like it is.  I respect that and it is how we became friends in the first place.  She championed me when I was being targeted by gossip that bordered on slander and she didn’t even know me then. But she knew it was wrong.

I remember another friend said to me recently that this bent towards malicious gossip is why people do not volunteer in their communities or elsewhere. You have these people who are like bunches of broody clucking chickens.  Ready to peck at anything that moves.  And why?  Again usually because someone is different.

Look ladies, we all don’t self-identify by development names instead of towns and roads. And maybe someone is a free spirit or an independent thinker. But does that make them bad people? NO. Get over yourselves. And stop it.

I do not pretend to be perfect. I just think we can do better.  And that includes not exhibiting behavior like this and then wondering where kids get the impetus to bully in the schools.

I saw this quote which sums it up:

Gossips are worse than thieves because they steal another person’s dignity, honest reputation and credibility… which are challenging to restore. Remember: When your feet slip, you can always recover your balance. But when your tongue slips, you cannot recover your words. — Karen Salmansohn

It’s not glamorous, it’s just being bitchy and destructive. Seriously? Try being actually kind to one and other.

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the company you keep: gossip and politics

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I think I sometimes truly grow weary of the politics of politics and all it entails including gossip….locally. Sometimes I find people that are perfectly nice becoming collateral damage because they are judged quite literally by the company they keep, right or wrong.

Ahh yes, the old adage you are judged by the company you keep. I remember my own mother telling me that when I was a teenager, and I remember scoffing at the idea. Then I remember being in my mid 20s and figuring out exactly what she was talking about and it was one of those a-ha moments that sometimes your mother is right. A friend of mine and I were talking about it recently and they said their mother said to them “show me your friends, I’ll show you your future.”

(Please don’t tell my mother I said she was right about something LOL, I will never hear the end of it.)

Anyway, this friend came to me to talk about a tsunami of really unpleasant social media. She’s not someone I know real well but I have known for a few years. I met her when she lived elsewhere and I was first out here. She’s been living for the past few years in a place in Chester County where I have a lot of friends. Only I don’t know if her experience has been so friendly all of the time while living there.

This person is fast becoming what I can only describe as collateral damage in a power struggle that she should just be left out of. But it’s kind of hard when you live in a small community. My friend’s opinions are strong, which I respect because I have some pretty strong opinions at times.

My friend is a very loyal person, and she has formed friendships in this community that I would not personally choose for myself, but it’s her decision. And I dance around the subject of these people with her because I don’t think it’s fair for my perspective to influence or taint hers. But if I was going to be dead on honest I would have to say that I hope these people remain good and decent people towards her. I have to admit I don’t know if they are capable of it, but that’s just my opinion, and I hope I am wrong.

This power struggle which exists for very good reasons can be contentious enough at times that it is literally like a battle of the Hatfields and the McCoys. And sadly, the people this person has aligned herself with have indeed hurt other people I care about. They have also come for me on occasion because I have my own opinions on things. But because I don’t live in the middle of all of them, I can be more objective at times and say I just don’t like them.

But this person whom I know, is again, literally being judged by the company she keeps. And I understand why, but it’s Christmas and I just wish everybody would let up a bit.

Chester County is an amazing place to live. Her residents have amazing heart. However, when it comes to politics and local shenanigans, it gets ugly. I have seen it in municipality after municipality. I used to think nothing could get more upsetting than Main Line or Delaware county gossip and politics… Until I moved to Chester County. Local politics can be a bloodsport out here, but can we say one of the roots of the cause can be when folks deal out good old-fashioned shady assed behavior?

I’m no fool, and I have my battle scars from just a few years living here. I’m outspoken and I’m a blogger. I don’t think you’re supposed to be either in the minds of some people. You are simply supposed to be some form of a Stepford wife. Or a bobble head.

I have done my time over the years of being the subject of gossip for being outspoken and a blogger and this whole theory of knives and knitting needles. And I have been the target of behavior that is so incredibly malicious and hurtful directed at me mostly because I was different than they were, or even because I just did not like them.

I think adult social bullying is the worst, and I truly think that a lot of people don’t even realize they are doing it. Another friend of mine and I were discussing this recently. She lives down on the Main Line and she noted that a child who was sadly very bullying towards classmates in school had parents who exhibited the exact same behavioral patterns towards adults.

Suffice it to say, human beings can be so incredibly cruel to one and other.

I think 2018 will go down in the history books as a year where everyone was totally mean to each other. I think a lot of this has to do with the stage that has been set in Washington DC , truthfully. People are so angry from coast to coast, and here in our little corner of the world you see it as well.

It’s Christmas. And my wish for Christmas as far as this nonsense goes, is a hope it just at takes a cease-fire at a minimum. Just slow your roll and stop being so mean to one and other. And you know what? I’m taking myself to task here as well. I haven’t been as nice this year as I should have been.

Just because someone doesn’t share in your exact ideology and belief system it doesn’t make them a bad person. And yes, even if they are friends with people you can’t stand it doesn’t make them a bad person.

In this life, we are all judged by the company we keep. And we also need to pause and remember we can’t control the actions of others we can only control the actions of ourselves.

Peace on earth, good will towards men, remember?

Thanks for stopping by.

gossip down the lane….

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Some days I feel as if I wear the Scarlet Letter. No, not the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, although in a sense it’s similar. The Scarlet D for different. Yes, yes, shocking and sad as it may be, apparently once again I am failing Stepford Wife school? Whatever shall I do, gentle readers?

“People will question all the good things they hear about you but believe all the bad without a second thought.”

Today I learned among other things that apparently I wish to control local social media. That is pretty amusing a comment and perhaps I should be flattered but mostly I am amused at the preposterousness of the statement. Yes, the adult gossip girls are at it again and to them I say thanks but no, I prefer a healthy balance between the tom foolery of social media and my real life.  My real life is far more satisfying and amazing. I wish their lives were  as well.

Where do these people come up with this stuff? And how is it they feel so free to trash talk and gossip about people they don’t know and have never had an actual face to face conversation with? Or they feel free to be nice to you to your face when you help them with things, and then just gossip and trash talk you when your usefulness has finished?

Sadly, there is in human nature the desire to gossip or chatter about others.  Anyone who says they haven’t done it isn’t being honest with themselves. I have written about it before because it is an interesting study in basic human nature or human flaws, take you pick.

Gossip is described as:

Gossip is idle talk or rumor, especially about personal or private affairs of others. It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts, views and slander. This term is used pejoratively by its reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted, and it also describes idle chat, a rumor of personal, or trivial nature….The term is sometimes used to specifically refer to the spreading of dirt and misinformation, as (for example) through excited discussion….

What is it about human nature that makes some people relish causing distress of others?

Why is it in the human dynamic to be cruel to one and other?

Have I lived the perfect life? No. But I like to think I am honest about who I am and I do actually try to be nice to people. Are there some people it is virtually impossible to be nice to? Yes indeed. And if you know me, you know I don’t suffer fools gladly.  I try to avoid those people.

Truthfully, those who are mean and spiteful gossips  “spreading the love” fall into the category of those people you choose not to have in your life after a point or at all in the first place.  Psychologically I can only wonder what they are punishing the world for, but the truth of the matter is none of us are getting any younger. Sooner or later you have to let crap go and move on. And you also have to accept people are different from you and as human beings we are not designed to be carbon copies of one and other.  We are truly allowed to have different opinions and to be different people.

Maybe have an actual tea party instead of sharing the tea? Mean Girls is after all,  so 2004 already.

I have met men who were terrible gossips, but truthfully it is an especially female weapon. It is used in my opinion most often to wound and hurt instead of the person really addressing what is wrong, even within themselves.

Why are women so cruel to each other?  Some say it is a basic evolutionary drive of women that men don’t have.  Some say it is low self-esteem. I think personally some people are just mean and have nothing better to do.

An article in Women’s Day Magazine asserts the reason gossip exists is to figure people out:

“Psst…what’s the latest?” We’ve all done it: passed on a juicy piece of  gossip or listened eagerly to someone else’s dish. And although we may have felt  a twinge of guilt, we kept gabbing anyway.

The truth is, 80 percent of our everyday conversations are purely personal,  with more of them being gossip than anything else, according to a 2009 study by  Nicholas Emler, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Surrey in  England. The main reason we keep going back for more: “It’s irresistibly fun,”  says Frank McAndrew, PhD, a professor of psychology at Knox College in  Galesburg, Illinois….But that’s just part of the story. Why we do it…..The short answer: to figure each other out. Since we don’t ever really know what  other people are thinking, collecting information from and about them—in effect,  playing amateur detective—is as close as we can get to being inside their heads.

And then there is this whole theory of gang gossip. and it thrives on social media.

And again, I am not perfect, have gossiped a day or two in my life. So maybe I am just evolving as an adult, but I have noticed how women use gossip and words as a weapon.  Some of it has been directed at me, some of it  directed at people I know.  And in each and every case, not for any positive gain.  So at the end of the day I have to ask: maybe we should all try to be nicer to each other and stay out of the pain of others?

I know a lot of women I have encountered in one way or the other since I moved to Chester County do not know how to take me.  I speak my mind, and I do not really play girl games.  I found those games childish at the junior high lunch table, and pretty much have maintained that sentiment all of my life.

I just do not get these women who are all about things like female empowerment, yet everything they do is about tearing a woman down.  They want you to love them and what they do, and they hope on a certain level they can control everything and everyone around them.  And when you disagree with them you are a bad person. And above all else you cannot be different.  You must be Stepford-esque as that is their sole comfort level when you get down to brass tacks.

These women will take to their local Facebook groups and beat their collective breasts about one thing or another, and it is especially humorous if someone points out they are incorrect about something.  Then you are MEAN and you can’t be MEAN to them. (You see we didn’t get the memo that only they are permitted to be mean.)

If you disagree with those who would be queens of one local society or another you are gossiped about and even flat-out lied about.  It’s one long tall tale spread out across social media and you are supposed to accept it as gospel and never challenge it. Truthfully, it is sometimes easier not to challenge the idiocy because they move along to the next bit of inanity, but sometimes you just can’t.  And you commit the cardinal sin of using the brain God gave you. Then it’s game on with them. They must at all costs beat you back into submission (or so they think.)

Some women are cruel to each other over some sort of unconscious fear or need for control being triggered by someone they perceive as a threat for whatever reason.  (Even if that reason to most of us makes no sense whatsoever. ) Some women just behave badly because they feel they can, that it is their divine right. Some just have poor interpersonal skills and some are just keyboard tigers who barely open their mouths in real life, but online have a completely different persona since they think they can just hide behind a keyboard and their words do not matter.

I was in a sorority in college that was an actual sisterhood and pretty cool.  Since then as I have aged, I keep encountering these groups of women who think they are a sisterhood, but if they were they wouldn’t behave the way they do.

These women don’t realize that when they complain about kids being bullied in school that HELLO where do they think the kids are learning the behavior?  They want to lead the march against cyber bullying, yet they do it.  If it wasn’t such a sad bit of commentary on human nature, it would truly be funny.

Women on women meanness is nothing new.  It is written about all of the time. I am not breaking any new ground here. It just causes me to marvel. Probably because hypocrisy never sits well with me. They all decry negativity, yet what are gossip and rumors anyway?

Gossip is driven by people who need to feel better about themselves by tearing down or spreading crap about others .  It is destructive to the fabric of a community, which is why when these are situations when you need a community to come together, they sometimes won’t.

The flip side some say that socially we probably could not function without gossip.  Maybe that is true since it is human nature to try to share with others in the hopes of finding commonality, or an attempt to fit in better.

People spread rumor and gossip to feel better about themselves, exert power, try to gain control, to get attention and to seek revenge.  It’s all about the drama.  To quote Bernard Baruch (and the quote is often attributed to Dr. Seuss) : Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind, don’t matter.

I can’t control what people say or think about me, I can only control who I am.  And at the end of the day, if these creatures want to tear me down or anyone else, that’s on them and it’s their loss.

We are just days before Thanksgiving.  Couldn’t we all put our time to better use?

Just what I am thinking about today.

Pax.

gossip

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Thomas-Sully Gossip- -Private-collection

Thomas Sully Gossip- -Private-collection

There is in human nature the desire to gossip or chatter about others.  Anyone who says they haven’t done it isn’t being honest with themselves.

Gossip is described as:

Gossip is idle talk or rumor, especially about personal or private affairs of others. It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts, views and slander. This term is used pejoratively by its reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted, and it also describes idle chat, a rumor of personal, or trivial nature.

Gossip has been researched in terms of its evolutionary psychology origins.[1] This has found gossip to be an important means by which people can monitor cooperative reputations and so maintain widespread indirect reciprocity.[2] Indirect reciprocity is defined here as “I help you and somebody else helps me.” Gossip has also been identified by Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary biologist, as aiding social bonding in large groups.[3] With the advent of the internet gossip is now widespread on an instant basis, from one place in the world to another what used to take a long time to filter through is now instant.

The term is sometimes used to specifically refer to the spreading of dirt and misinformation, as (for example) through excited discussion of scandals. Some newspapers carry “gossip columns” which detail the social and personal lives of celebrities or of élite members of certain communities

So recently a couple of people I know have been going through some difficult  stuff.  And one of these people is now being chattered about.

Pieter Brueghel the Younger

Pieter Brueghel the Younger

Yesterday a mutual acquaintance told me how this one person was gossiping about one of these people.  This person wasn’t chattering in a “oh I am so sorry, the poor dear” kind of way, they were gossiping in the “they have always been envious of this person’s life” kind of way. Sort of the super negative “aha” moment.

The person being dished by this other person would quite possibly be terribly hurt if they knew.  The great irony of course is the person “spreading the love” so to speak has hardly lived a pristine existence and truthfully that disturbs me.

What is it about human nature that makes some people relish the distress of others?  And why would you do that to someone who has only shown you kindness?

Why is it in the human dynamic to be cruel to one and other?

Have I lived the perfect life? No.  But I like to think I am honest about who I am and I do try to be nice to people.  Are there some people it is near on impossible to be nice to? Yes indeed. And that includes this person mentioned above “spreading the love”.

Truthfully, this person “spreading the love” is in the category of those people you choose not to have in your life after a point and this is why: because no matter how bad it gets for them they keep repeating the same pattern of mean and destructive behavior.  The pattern (specifically)  is they always somehow end up doing something not so nice to the people who show them kindness.  Psychologically I can only wonder what they are punishing the world for still, but the truth of the matter is none of us are getting any younger. Sooner or later you have to let crap go and move on.

I have met men who were terrible gossips, but truthfully it is an especially female weapon.   It is used in my opinion most often to wound and hurt instead of the person really addressing what is wrong.

For example, I have a friend  who is divorced who started dating again a few years after her divorce.  She met this great guy.  So nice in every way.  He is not quite finished with his divorce and although he was not the half of the equation who began his process, on the other side of his divorce table is a person who has created revisionist history.

And with that revisionist history comes malicious gossip that couldn’t be farther from the truth. As if my friend who came along way after their process began caused the issues to begin with.  And what recourse does my friend have? None, truthfully, because this person is spreading this brand of love to get more attention for themselves.  And if my friend reacts, it will be at her expense.

Why are women so cruel to each other?  Some say it is a basic evolutionary drive of women that men don’t have.  Some say it is low self-esteem. I think personally some people are just mean and have nothing better to do.

An article in Women’s Day Magazine asserts the reason gossip exists is to figure people out:

“Psst…what’s the latest?” We’ve all done it: passed on a juicy piece of  gossip or listened eagerly to someone else’s dish. And although we may have felt  a twinge of guilt, we kept gabbing anyway.

The truth is, 80 percent of our everyday conversations are purely personal,  with more of them being gossip than anything else, according to a 2009 study by  Nicholas Emler, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Surrey in  England. The main reason we keep going back for more: “It’s irresistibly fun,”  says Frank McAndrew, PhD, a professor of psychology at Knox College in  Galesburg, Illinois….But that’s just part of the story. Why we do it…..The short answer: to figure each other out. Since we don’t ever really know what  other people are thinking, collecting information from and about them—in effect,  playing amateur detective—is as close as we can get to being inside their heads.

 

Gossip-Girls-original-painting

And then there is this whole gang gossip.  This week I found myself plunked in the middle of a group conversation concerning something that happened on a group Facebook Page I am on.  It wasn’t something taken off the board by the page administrator, it was a bunch of women pissed off AT  the page administrator.  Who is a friend of mine.

The thing is this however, I haven’t been on the page much, and have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, nor do I care or want to be part of it.  I was somewhat astounded the way they were kind of picking this person apart. It was like high school all over again. And to me, it was just gossip.  I didn’t get into it, just sort of exited the conversation.

And again, I am not perfect, have gossiped a day or two in my life. So maybe I am just evolving as an adult, but recently I have noticed how women use gossip and words as a weapon.  None of it has been directed at me, but it has been right or wrong directed at people I know.  And in each and every case, not for any positive gain.  So at the end of the day I have to ask: maybe we should all try to be nicer to each other and stay out of the pain of others?

What do you think?