How to Quit Gossiping

I was quite a gossip when I was a teen, devouring tabloid items and showbiz news more than any textbook I ever owned. I also knew pretty much every nasty tidbit on people in school. There’s a certain voyeuristic satisfaction about it.

I enjoyed talking about other people. Especially embarassing shit about other people. As I grew older, I realized I was doing it mostly to take people’s attention from me. I didn’t like talking about myself.

These days, I cannot stand gossip. It always makes me feel bad afterwards.

I try to crack jokes when people start hushing nasty stuff around me. It breaks the pattern a bit and we can start talking normally.

However, conversations always seem to fall into the same nasty place. It appears nitpicking other people’s lives make most people feel better about themselves, at least during the course of the discussion. It makes me feel better too and more than a few times, I have found myself joining in.

The sad fact is gossip takes our focus away from what really matters in our life. Instead of fixing that fight with your daughter, you end up in a dreamy talk about who’s the bigger Big Brother slut. Or the weird habits of that new guy in accounting. Or some other nasty rumor mongering.

If you find yourself sucked into the gossipy path, here are a few adjustments you can make to get away from it:

1. Spend as little time on trivial things as possible (TV, tabloids, celebrity news, what the neighbors are doing)
2. Bring your focus into things that inspire you and get you motivated
3. Change your recreational activities (write, draw, learn crafts, hike a trail - do something active instead of passive entertainment)
4. When topics turn to gossip, petend to be either dumb or deaf (e.g. “Oh really? Nice.”)
5. Try to reframe things positively during conversations, even jokingly. It destroys the flow. (e.g. “She’s such a slut.” -> “Wow, I’d like to meet her. Introduce us!”)

What’s most important, I believe, is to be more interested in your life than other people’s. To do otherwise is just sad.

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