Imagine everyone you know all know each other, see each other regularly and love to talk, a lot, about everything. Basically imagine you are back in high school. That is what it is like to live in a small town. Everyone knows everyone, everyone talks about everyone and I will put my hand up and say that I am no exception. Doesn't mean I like it.
Gossip comes in two forms, intentional and unintentional. The unintentional is born of boredom and well lack of anything else to talk about; I am guilty of this one. The intentional is self serving, maybe by acting as a discloser of information the gossiper can gain the confidence and friendship of another person, maybe even drive a wedge between them and the one they are gossiping about so that they become their friend instead. There is also a version far more malicious. The rumour starter. This one deliberately lies to either destroy the reputation of another or to cover up their behaviour, sometimes both.
Regardless of the initiation, the giant game of Chinese whispers that is small town life sends the whole thing out of control. Reputations are damaged, relationships torn apart, attitudes formed and all from what? Well a lot of the time it's nothing. Other times it's not, in these circumstances my plan of attack has been confront and admit. Confront the person who started the gossip, always with a witness, so that they know you are on to them. Don’t' for a second think they will admit fault to anything as they will not. Then, admit to the parts of the story that are true, and get in first wherever you can.
I will digress here. My dad recently went on a tour of England, Scotland and Wales at sometime during that tour he got up out of his bed, half drunk, to go to the bathroom only in his jocks as apparently that's how he rolls, anyway then he accidentally walked out of the front door of the hotel room instead of into the bathroom. My uncle watched the whole thing, laughing and left him out there for a while before letting him back in, probably in the hope that he would be sprung by the younger female members of the tour. Knowing his brother as he does, dad assumed that he would not only tell everyone on the bus but also plan some humiliating trick at some later stage. The next morning dad gets on the bus, and announces to the whole group that he locked himself out of his room in just his jocks. Now I am not advocating that you hold a press conference to air your indiscretions, but this story does illustrate the advantage to cutting them off at the pass so to speak.
Reactions to rumours and gossip are also etched forever more in small town memory, as either "well he didn't argue too much so it must be right" or "she was too defensive so definitely hiding something", you can't win so why bother. So should you explain yourself, personalities like mine insist on it, we cannot handle unresolved issues, and this has quite often got me into more trouble that the gossip itself. Then what do I do with the gossiper, I can't handle not being liked either so I am forever trying to smooth out friendships. Well I am happy to say since my 30's started these incidents are few and far between.
There is another issue, because of the nature of small towns we do have a tendency to over think things people say. Assume that they have been talking about something when they haven't. This is sort of self centred paranoia is another one of my traits I am afraid. That being said my experience in small town/community life has rarely proved me wrong, especially if you are very familiar with the other personalities involved. So what do you do about the gossip? Nothing. Take it from me even a DNA test and 18 month long court case will still leave people saying, "well ok she was right about that but there must have been some truth to the rumour", just for the record - there isn't. But there is nothing I can do about that.
So next time you have a bit of gossip in your head that you are dying to get off your chest, because it does sometimes feel like a burdon, think about the consequences. Is this going to damage any reputations, any friendships, relationships, what is my purpose here, and finally do I need to pass this information on at all? And before you react... breathe.
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