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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think most people do enjoy a good gossip?

58 replies

AdventureBe · 22/06/2015 09:37

On here, any hint that you might be prone to gossip is met in a very judgemental way.

IRL, the only people I've met who say they object to a bit of gossip are the ones who love it the most. Most aren't spiteful about it, but everyone likes to hear some "news" about mutual acquaintances.

OP posts:

Mrsjayy · 22/06/2015 14:21

My neighbour is a nasty snidey gossip nobody is safe she stands with another neighbour for ages i avoid them both and if they say to me did you hear.., i say no im not that interested or i dont know them this causes them to think im an uppity snob i heard then whispering about us moving the other day and i havnt told anybody im weird apparently anyway gossip can harm folk and i think we need to be careful with it

CatOfTheGreenGlades · 22/06/2015 14:34

Well, although I'm not above a bit of a bitch, I suppose that illustrates what I wouldn't do MrsJayy. I wouldn't gossip about other people's perfectly harmless and normal behaviour like moving house, and I certainly wouldn't stand in the street and do it where I could be overheard by the person I'm complaining about. I'm talking about being round at a neighbour's house and indoors.

I do think it's probably not nice for the interfering neighbour to be thought ill of, and if I was an endlessly tolerant and forgiving person, I'd rise above it. But she terrorises the street and people let off steam about it.

gobbin · 22/06/2015 15:06

I like to hear gossip and be 'in the know' unless it's bitchy. I don't spread gossip (as I'm usually the last to know anyway

I had an acquantaince who hated any gossip and would close a gossipy conversation down straight away. Fair play, had a respect for that, but it's not my way.

SunnyBaudelaire · 22/06/2015 15:08

depends on the nature of the 'gossip' though doesn't it?

It can be incredibly damaging.

WellTidy · 22/06/2015 15:16

"talking about stuff that is happening in someone else's life when they are not there - not a nice thing to do"

I couldn't agre with the above more.

I went to collect my DS1 from school the otehr week. I approache a group of mums, who I knew, on nodding and passiing the times of day outside the school gate terms, and they stopped dead in their conversation when I approached. One went bright red. They had clearly been talking about me. The mums looked straight at the one who was bright red, which prompted her to ask me whether something about my DS2 was true? He has SEN, not that I have ever discussed it with any of them, and not that it is any of their business - he does not even attend the same school as he is too young.

That is gossiping IMO. Enjoying discussing something that affects someone and which they have no control over, when they are not there. I look at them in a completely different way now and just say hello and thats that.

Tinklewinkle · 22/06/2015 15:23

Depends on the nature of the gossip and who you're gossiping with.

I hate nasty spiteful gossip and I refuse to get involved with anything like that and never spread anything.

I might have a bit of a gossip about something with DH (safe in the knowledge that it will go no further) - for example, our nightmare neighbours have recently been raided by the police so we've had a good old chat about it

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 22/06/2015 15:32

How many mutual acquaintances do you have on mumsnet, OP? I'm confused by what you mean. Do you refer to people you might know and catch up with gossip about them on here? I don't know anyone here personally so I can't identify with that.

Or do you mean the recent 'swimsuit' or 'hot weather dressing' thread? Both of which are thinly veiled attempts at goady posters wanting to verbally slap other people around a bit so that they feel a bit crap?

Or is it something else?

I'm very happy to be 'sanctimonious' because it only seems to be the gossips and bitches that call me on it. Agree totally with the other posters about nasty spiteful gossip... always obvious, however benignly it's dressed up.

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 22/06/2015 15:38

I once hinted at some celeb gossip I knew on a thread, actually it wasn't gossip it was a fact. I will NEVER do so again, I think I had about 70 PM's asking me to reveal the celeb

I don't know anyone who doesn't like a gossip

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 22/06/2015 15:55

I think I know what thread that was, Dame, I wasn't interested in the celebrity so didn't PM you BUT, if it had been about Donald Sutherland or Alan Rickman, I would have.

SolitaryInTheVoid · 22/06/2015 15:59

No.

Gossip is for the bird-brained and the trivia-obsessed.

GinUpGirl · 22/06/2015 17:18

How superior of you Solitary!

FayKorgasm · 22/06/2015 17:23

WellTidy what an awful experience for you.
I hope they end up in your position some day hearing themselves being talked about.

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 22/06/2015 17:25

Lying- and I would have replied if you'd asked

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 22/06/2015 17:27

I remember a psychologist talking about gossip once on the radio, they said people used it as a bonding experience. Makes sense.

HiawathaDidntBotherTooMuch · 22/06/2015 20:05

Yes, but bonding in the sense that the gossipers can then feel superior, as they haven't had the (usually bad) fortune that the people they're gossiping about has had? Not nice.

Mrsjayy · 22/06/2015 20:11

So....... Dame this celeb gossip

ScrambledEggAndToast · 22/06/2015 20:15

Love a good bit of gossip

MoanyPants · 22/06/2015 20:33

I have a friend who is so careful about not gossiping that I spent a whole weekend with her and she didn't once mention that a mutual friend of ours had become a lesbian and bought a house with her new partner because it 'wasn't her news to tell'. Even though this mutual friend came up in conversation several times.

I thought it was weirder that she didn't mention it at all. Like, I would've classed that as just passing on interesting information about someone we knew.

SunnyBaudelaire · 22/06/2015 20:35

I have a friend like that moanypants - they are admirable.

tumsup · 22/06/2015 20:49

I think it depends where you live as well. Here, people spread rumours that are completely untrue, yet people believe it and then just sort of shun that person (small town). Sometimes it's just damaging.

We have a friend who had cancer and took several months off work. She didn't want people to know but her partner confided in us. It's actually been really hard because somehow a rumour has gone round that this person had a breakdown. When they didn't. I can't count how many times people have talked about this person's breakdown with a tilted head, when they didn't have one. But we've not said, well no they've had cancer, because they didn't want us to.

There's a woman at school who told me how another parent at the school had noisy sex. The woman is her "bff". I still don't understand what her motives were for telling me - someone she barely knew. But made me damn sure I told her nothing about me. I didn't invite her round my house again. It was like a nasty betrayal that she was using to try and bond.

SunnyBaudelaire · 22/06/2015 20:52

it is nasty - there is this gossip in our village - when my son asked a girl out, he was telling me horrible things about her family, and then going round to HER family and saying shit about us! It was so so damaging.
Now when he starts I just laugh at him and go LALALALALAALALALA dont want to know

Pyjamaface · 22/06/2015 21:02

I work behind a bar so I hear loads of gossip. I admit to liking hearing it as well, sometimes it's uncomfortable when someone is clearly trying to shit stir or find out info about someone else etc.

It all stops with me tho, I will deny knowing anything about anything if asked

UglyBugaz · 22/06/2015 21:08

I listen but don't speak

wanttosqueezeyou · 22/06/2015 21:10

When does conversation/catch up /"how's suchabody?" Become gossip?

Summerisle1 · 22/06/2015 22:57

When does conversation/catch up /"how's suchabody?" Become gossip?

Good question. I tend to assume when it reaches the point where people are saying things they wouldn't be prepared to repeat to the person they are gossiping about. But then defining gossip is a bit of a minefield. Because there's a world of difference between (and this is an example from last week in real life) "Unfortunately, I really didn't think that particular outfit suited X' and 'I know we are about to go out with Y but I'm fed up with them being in the group. Let me tell you why I think we should ignore Y tonight'.

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