GOSSIP: Did you hear about…? Be mindful of what you share and with whom

Nancy’s husband left her for his high school sweetheart.

I can’t believe Sally bought a new home for $2 million. Where did she get the money?

What’s the latest with Harry and Meghan? I heard they might get divorced, or he might get sent back to England.

I can’t believe Frances, who is so good looking, used filler to puff up her lips. She now looks like a platapus. Quack, quack.

Gossip. We have a love/hate relationship with it. Humans have a proclivity to gossip, which means talking about others in a usually negative way behind their backs. The term is defined by the dictionary “as casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.” Mostly, it isn’t nice, but it fills some emotional need. It can also be fun and a good connector. People want to hear what you have to say, and it’s a way to get attention. 

The two of us indulge in it for mostly levity, we admit, as a segue from our work. And truth be told, we like getting the other’s take on what we see, read and hear as we pass by supermarket magazine headlines that scream, “Harry and Dad, the King, are at long last reconciling,” or on TV when the serious news is over to tell us there’s a new Bachelor or Bachelorette, or in chatter we eavesdrop on in restaurants, the gym and at the hairdresser or nail salon

Although reluctant to admit it, most of us rarely go a day without some form of gossip circulating around us like the air we breathe. A recent New Yorker magazine article confirms this and seems to give the seal of approval to this form of conversation since everyone does it and has done it since caveman times. 

In the New Yorker article “Just Between Us”, Alexandra Schwartz writes about a new book that deliciously and thoroughly dissects the term gossip and all it entails, titled “You Didn’t Hear This from Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip” by Kelsey M. Kinney. In fact, both the article and the book seem to make the case for all the good reasons to gossip. One is that it’s gone on forever--so why stop now, and two is that some of the best authors such as Jane Austen or George Eliott aka Mary Ann Evans who wrote Middlemarch had their characters gossip relentlessly.

Today, many continue to view it as essential to add conversation and fun into their lives by chattering about others, whether they know them or simply have heard or read about them. How else to fill some of the time in our days and add something simple and mindless when our complex world seems to be coming apart. 

Case in point: Did you hear that Jeff Bezos’ upcoming wedding to Laura Sanchez is going to cost $600 million? Well, don’t spread it further since Bezos himself is said to have shot down that rumor as untrue after a story appeared in the “Daily Mail.” And most frankly, do we really care since what he might lavish on nuptials with his megabucks is irrelevant to our lives, just as what he did spend on his yacht Koru is said to be less gossip and more fact--about $500 million to build it and $25 million a year to maintain it. But then, we never saw any bills, so this may also be pure gossip without a fact check. But here, too, why do we care whether it’s true or not, given it’s far more than most of us can ever imagine having to spend on anything or everything!

Or here’s another tale of gossip. All the discussion about what not just caused the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa but why he left all his money to her and not to his three children. Why should we spend precious time wondering or worrying, especially since we can’t verify facts with either of the deceased. Yet, this kind of gossip—peering into someone’s life like we knew them does do some good by letting us speculate, debate, analyze. How bad is that?

In other cases, gossip does matter more since it can take a sharp dark turn and get malicious when it spreads like manure and hurts peoples’ reputations and feelings. 

Case in point: The real reason why Princess Kate withdrew from public life before her cancer diagnosis was known. Many had come up with all sorts of assumptions and explanations based on zero facts except for their vivid imaginations with help from lots of social media postings and even main news headlines. But after it was revealed that she was ill, many quickly flipflopped to defend her silence and absence from royal life because of what she was going through.

In other cases, people gossip and share information that gets distorted as it gets tossed around exponentially with more people—sort of what happens in the Game of Telephone. A woman is seen at a restaurant for dinner with a man who’s not her husband; the gossip mill starts that she must be cheating on her husband, especially since she looked so ravishing with new neatly coiffed hair, perfect makeup, and a stunning outfit. Why would someone not think that maybe she was having a business meeting, was with a relative or getting together with a long-time friend? Hum, chew on that!  

It would be better if the person who saw them had kept that sighting to herself rather than feeling the need to tell one person who had to tell another and another. That’s why this warning: be careful what you say and with whom you share the gossip.
Does this mean that all gossip should be eliminated, and we should never, ever gossip again? At the very least it should be curtailed if its intent is going to hurt someone’s reputation, feelings, or any part of their personal life. And the two of us have a hard and fast rule: We do not gossip about anyone’s children. That’s off limits. 

We therefore think gossip should be put into different categories, rating it like the rungs of gift giving on Rambam’s Ladder. It can be mild, hot, salacious, malicious and mean and, in extreme cases, a destroyer of relationships and lives. That’s when rumor and gossip crossover into what others consider to be truth, even if it is not. Here are our types: 

•    Harmless acceptable gossip. This is the kind we probably do all the time. We banter with friends, but it goes no further and may focus on famous people we don’t know beyond what we read or hear or people we do know but which we don’t share. Example: “I heard Nancy Reagan borrowed many of her designer outfits rather than pay for them outright.” While it would be nice to verify such a statement rather than automatically think she was frugal, who might now do so since so many during those years are deceased. Furthermore, does it matter since two friends gossiping about her wardrobe and the possibility of freebies are merely sharing “idle” gossip, which isn’t going further or into print?
•    Celebratory reputation-boosting gossip. Some need gossip to spread their name, talents and reputation. It’s the old chestnut: there is no bad publicity. So, they should thank us profusely or how would we all know about them, whether the Kardashians and their many romances and ups and downs and the humongous salaries of the latest athletic superstars. Our chit-chat gossip spreads the possibility for them to reap more fame and fortune.
•    Mean gossip. This is talk again between friends or people who are sharing information about someone they know not knowing where it might go beyond them to others and then spread further. Example: “I have it on good authority that John cheats at golf and some will no longer play with him.” While that might be verified by someone in the group, why possibly besmirch his reputation, and why does it matter to others who aren’t in the foursome? Eventually, if true, it may catch up with him. The consequence may be that nobody will want to play in his foursome.  
•     Damaging gossip. Here’s where the gossip gets back to the person being gossiped about or to someone near and dear to that person. Example: “I heard Suzy rarely called or regularly visited her mother while she was alive in the nursing home.” Maybe it was true but maybe Suzy had her reasons or maybe people didn’t know about her visits. Why heap a nasty rumor on someone who’s had enough heartache.
 
While we know gossip is never going to end completely, it seems more important that we strive for a kinder, gentler world by limiting how much we gossip—maybe just once a day, with whom we gossip—one close pal, what we gossip about—frivolous stuff, and who we gossip about—people we don’t know and will never meet. These are just some possibilities. 

But in the end, the knowledge that everyone does it makes us feel a bit less guilty and removes the need to pretend we don’t. Because we all do. It’s just human nature.