Dealing With Gossip

Beating gossip entails figuring out why people are gossiping, looking past the obvious to see the person or people for what they really are. A coworker may gossip about you because they find doing so increases the attention they get from others and so, in their mind, raises their social standing within the workplace. A nosy neighbor may just have no life and finds that gossiping about others is the only thing that excites them.

Once you understand why people gossip you can begin to do (or not do) something about it.

For many forms of gossip there isn't much that can be done. Nosy neighbors have always existed, although to be fair, chances are all the other residents are fully aware of just how nosy they are by the time they can become an issue for you. In this, most gossiper really defeat themselves for you since they quickly build up reputations for themselves, which means most people recognize them as such.

Networks of Gossip:
The real problem begins when rumors about you begin to go beyond one or a few people talking ill of you. When a lie gets legs, a person's reputation is chased by it, and the in the ensuing trouble a person may find themselves alienated from others, rumors may lead to trouble at work or at finding work, and will probably have an effect on the person's family and friends as well.

This kind of gossip is especially dangerous when used in places where people are all tightly packed together. The most obvious, and one of the most common, forms of this kind of gossip is the stereotypical small American town, a place where everyone has lived together for years and with little else to do everyone is butting into each other's business.

In this setting someone may take it upon themselves to spread lies and half-truths about someone else for several reasons, all of which involve putting themselves up at the other person's expense. By talking bad about someone, that gossiper gets attention from the rest of the community.

Attempts on the part of the person being talked about to dissuade the gossiper may just result in more gossip. Most adults will simply ignore gossip, and this usually works, after all if the person isn't responding and is clearly happy and uncaring of the fact, then the gossipers don't get the emotional stimulus they wanted in hurting someone else. But gossip is always a form of passive-aggressive bullying and sometimes just the fact they get to talk about someone gives them that emotional high. This is normally the case when the gossip strikes a social chord and others in the community really want to join in.

So the question, then, is simple in concept: how do you 'defeat' a community or network of gossipers?

Always A Bigger Fish:
Gossipers don't like being dragged into the spotlight themselves because to do so would open them up to being talked about as well. If a gossiper or network of them is talking about you, revealing that fact to a wider audience may help in diminishing their desire to gossip.

This is especially so in the modern age of the internet and its plethora of social-networking sites.

Doing so is tricky because it so easily degrades into mud slinging, each side accusing the other of moral injustices and neither ever really getting anywhere. Getting evidence is also tricky because it often has legal ramifications and, when done too frequently, seems more childish than anything.

The real trick to beating a network of gossipers is disproving them.

Take what they say and turn it on them, prove you're not what they say you are. It makes them look like lairs and fools and makes others talk about them instead.