Gossip

My grammar school used to give its' students half days every Thursday (for what reason I can’t remember, teacher meetings perhaps?) On those days my Mom would usually treat me to Roy Rogers and I’d sit there in my doofy Catholic school uniform eating my Double R burger and relating the day’s excitement to her.

One of those lunches is indelibly imprinted on my brain because on that particular day my Mom smacked me in the head. She was not a head smacker by any means, so obviously this was done for major emphasis. And while I never forgot the smack I never really learned the lesson she was trying to impart.

You see she smacked me because I was speaking ill of one of my teachers. I’m pretty sure I used the phrase, “I hate her,” one uttered countless times by millions of students the world over, but I was in a public place, frequented by many members of the community who either attended my school or had kids there.

“You never know who’s listening!” she exclaimed after the wallop. That’s right. You never know. Of course by this time I was well versed in the art of talking behind someone’s back. We all do it to one degree or another. In fact in 38 years on this planet I have yet to come across someone who doesn’t indulge in it. It is so prevalent that I would even list it among the necessities of life, along with eating, drinking, and all the rest.

I get a bad rap because not only do I indulge in it, I tend to enjoy it. I can keep secrets but it’s great when you can tell someone. For example, someone from one facet of your life coughs up some deep dark secret and you tell someone from another part of your life, which has nothing to do with the other person, and presumably never will. I don’t really consider that one betraying a confidence. However, if the secret is one of truly epic proportions I realize when to keep my mouth shut. I’m really all about the grey areas – nothing is black and white!

My mother’s smack/lesson has come back to haunt me several times in the intervening thirty odd years, sometimes to comical effect and others to much more painful effect. I have been the talker and the one talked about. I don’t believe I’m a special case, although I do revel in the whole washer woman thing a bit much for someone of my gender.

In my defense, a lot of it is borne just from a sheer love of talking, observing, amateur psychoanalyzing, etc. and I’d rather pick apart a person than a good book. I’ve had some great partners in crime for this particular enterprise at different moments in my life, and when I’ve lost one God usually sees fit to send me another!

My first memorable experience with gossip (I use the term loosely throughout for the lack of a better one) happened after a particularly memorable moment in my life with a member of the opposite sex (for me, I'm sure not for her!) I was on cloud nine and of course, I shared the moment with several friends.

Very shortly after the experience I went to the movies with two friends. It was a crowded theater and we had to sit near the front. The movie was, “A Fish Called Wanda,” (I remember these things, I’m twisted like that). Anyway I was talking up the whole “relationship” with a puffed up chest, rambling on about how cool things were going to be for the rest of the summer now that this happened, bla bla.

She was right behind me.

No, not ten rows behind me, not eight seats to my left or twelve to my right, or even in front of me. She was right behind me. She hadn’t told me she was seeing this film, nor did she alert me to her presence when she sat down. She heard everything I said. She let me go on and on and finally announced herself right before the film started.

SMACK!

Needless to say, I was handed my walking papers within a week or so. Ultimately, it was all for the best, but from that moment on, I realized I had a special gift for self-sabotage! "You never know who’s around." Right again, Mom. You’d think I would learn.

The next time gossip reared its head I was on the receiving end. This time someone who I was very close to said something that utterly devastated me. Obviously I was never meant to hear it (and the context in which it was said sounded like this person was trying to impress the other). The person who told me did it “for my own good,” because she observed me as needlessly suffering over something that had no future, something she was also doing at the time.

I never explicitly confronted the person over what was said (at least I’m pretty sure I didn’t) but I stopped communicating with them and eventually terminated the relationship. Here again I learned a lesson that I never put into practice. Be careful who you tell what to. Do they have your best interests at heart? Can they turn on you? In this particular case, this person turned on her friend to share something with me, and betrayed a confidence for what she considered a more noble purpose.

About three years later I found myself really slinging the dirt one night with another friend, who also loved the gossip. We were acting like a pair of 13-year old girls yammering on about two mutual friends, wondering if they were in fact, a couple (which they were). There’s way too much backstory here but suffice it say the girl I was dishing about had some convoluted history with me.

My friend and I were in an office that had several partitions that were by no means soundproof (they didn’t even reach the wall). Anyway we had a nice long session and when we were through, we proceeded to leave the office, and pass by……the two people were talking about.

SMACK!

Is there a color that’s paler than white? At that moment throwing up seemed my only logical option. I was dead on so many levels – even my friend who indulged in the deed with me was not nearly as dead as me. I spent the rest of the night apologizing to little avail, wrote a letter of apology (which probably dug me in worse), made a special mea culpa visit to the office the following week and so on. I had terminal foot in mouth disease with this person and this was the most shining example of it. Sorry Mom.

Three years later e-mail had become a new tool in the arsenal for embarrassing myself. To set the stage a bit – I had become friendly with someone a few years prior who, despite being a nice, well-meaning person, was a little too much with the togetherness for my taste, and had a tendency to exaggerate nearly anything to a ridiculous degree in the hopes of impressing others.

Anyway, he started dating someone who seemed pretty cool to me. She and I became friendly and we often discussed him and our frustrations with him in person and, yes, via e-mail. They eventually introduced me to my future wife and we became the dynamic duo of couples. However we soon tired of their company and tried to distance ourselves from them. The togetherness was suffocating us.

My girlfriend soon became my fiancée and my friend’s girlfriend was none too pleased that a couple who she set up was getting engaged before she was (with no ring in sight!) So the twisted little psycho dredged up my e-mails to her about my friend and promptly showed them to him, in an effort to prove she had his best interests at heart, that I was really not his friend.

SMACK!

This one really sent me reeling. I told my fiancée I would never speak to this chick again and she agreed to have nothing to do with her. My friend and I never recovered from this incident – I wrote him a letter (my M.O.) and he called me upon receiving it. He was obviously shattered by what I had said and I think he was leaving the door open to repair the friendship, if I groveled enough, but I didn’t take the bait. I took the opportunity, callous as it sounds, to leave it where it was, because the friendship had no forward motion.

P.S. He dumped the chick two weeks later and her life has been a disaster ever since. I did put a hex on her that hopefully had something to do with it.

That last really bruising incident happened about 12 years ago, and with all apologies to Mom, I don’t think I’ve learned my lesson.

At my part-time job I’m part of a very close knit group of people with a very interesting dynamic. We at least admit to each other we talk about the one who’s not there and I am the King Blabbermouth. There I can be out in the open with it. I have no allegiances and if someone refuses to tell someone something they just ask me because sooner or later I’ll weasel the info out of them and share.

I know, that sounds horrible, but the truth is we don’t hide much from each other and our lives are pretty much an open secret with one another. It’s just a matter of who knows what when. In more unscrupulous hands the stuff we share with one another could be devastating, but these are people I’d trust with my life, and I know what we share within the confines of our little sphere stays there.

So what’s the moral of the story? I suppose the first one is know who you are talking to. If you’re talking about Person A with Person B and A and B know each other, or are friends, be damn sure you can trust Person A. And always, always, always, look behind you!

Let’s be honest gossip makes the world go round. I accept the fact that people take my name in vain, even those who love me. Sometimes they do it out of concern. Sometimes they’re pissed at me. Sometimes it may just be a really juicy story and I’m all for that!

Recently life came full circle when, in a restaurant with my Mom, she said something that wasn’t very P.C. I looked at her and said, “You never know who’s behind you!”

I didn’t smack her though.