Spill The Beans
Friday, May 25, 201210:11 PM
Gossiping refers to idle talk or rumor about the personal or private affairs of others.
Or at least, according to Wikipedia.
No matter your age, gender, race or nationality, I think gossiping is pretty much an indispensable past-time for most of us. When you’ve run out of topics to talk about with your friends and things are starting to get boring, sharing juicy tidbits about high-profile scandals seems to be exactly what you need. Or maybe you’re just not in the mood for HTHT and frivolous chit-chat is an enticing substitute. Or maybe you think life is starting to get really monochromatic, and hearing about what others have been up to is the next best thing to actually experiencing it yourself. Who knows? Maybe sometimes we gossip for no reason at all.
I think everybody has an inbred love for gossip-not all the time and perhaps not for the same reasons, but certainly at least once in awhile. It’s in our human nature to feel curiosity, after all! But in NY, hearing about something totally OMG-worthy was as rare as finding an extra $10 note in your wallet. It comes by once in a blue moon, but leaves a trail of commotion and excitement in its wake. So I guess there wasn’t really much of a temptation to gossip.
But you know what? There is a lot of material this year. Since the start of school, I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but yakking. About whether that guy is interested in that girl, whether he has become friend-zoned, whether she has a terrible reputation, whether they’re ever going to stop hemming and hawing and just get together already…it’s like following a drama but in real life. I knew all along that it was really superficial and wouldn’t benefit me in any way, but once your friends start, it’s hard not to join in the fun.
Gossiping was just pure and harmless entertainment at first. The thing is, it has since morphed into something else, something that I’m not sure I should be participating in. I’ve lost count of the number of times when my friends and I gossiped away happily without knowing that the object of discussion was within close proximity. And hence, within earshot. How screwed is that?! There is a slight possibility that they may not have overheard, or realised that they were the ones being talked about, but it doesn’t matter. Because you’re still going to feel like digging a hole to climb in and just rot inside for the rest of your life in utter embarrassment and horror. You’re still going to feel the prickling of your conscience, the guilt slowly but steadily mounting within you, the uneasy uncertainty as to whether you’ve actually been exposed. You worry about the consequences you may have to face. If you actually know the person, or worse, are friends with her, you fear your relationship will be in jeopardy.
Of course, it all depends on what you were gossiping about. If it’s something totally insignificant, or something positive, who freaking cares if anyone has overheard it? But the problem is that not everything we say belongs to the above two categories, and as luck has it, people always choose to walk by when I’m expressing an opinion that is not particularly flattering.
I’m not kind, morally upright, principled or righteous. Basically, I’m not a nice person, at least not in the conventional sense. Still, it bothers me because we’ve been taught that talking behind someone’s back is bad, yet here I am doing the exact same thing. I feel ashamed when I sometimes pass judgment about others, when I don’t know them personally. I mean, like, who am I to judge? What right do I have to speak of their affairs?
It hits me especially hard when I realise that I’ve accidentally leaked out something that a friend confided in me, trusting that I would keep it to myself. It’s a mistake many of us have probably made before…When you’re under the scrutiny of the gossip circle, where everyone waits with bated breath for you to divulge an earth-shattering golden nugget, sometimes you just succumb and blurt it out. But I know that’s not an excuse. And that’s what makes me feel like CRAP afterwards.
I know it’d be Mission Impossible for me to quit gossiping entirely; 1) Old habits die hard, 2) Peer pressure, and 3) It can be fun. But maybe it’s time for me to lay down some rules for myself, so I won’t overstep the boundaries and say stuff that I regret in future. Then hopefully I can become someone I’d entrust my secrets to.