Hey, did you hear about that guy who runs a quirky website? I heard he's on drugs, which is why he uses those weird colors. Also, he only uses HTML (shocked gasp from the other person). Isn't he just plain crazy?
For some people, gossip is the lifeline to a happier place. They are addicted to gossip and can't imagine a day without prattling about how someone did something, taking great pride in hashing out other's dirty laundry in public. They dole out labels and insulting nicknames all the time with the sole purpose of dividing and pitting people against one another for their perverse pleasure.
In the world of a gossip addict, everything is as vivid as a reality show – people have abortions, kill, poison and abuse one another and children are whores or retards. Nothing is sacred to the gossip addict and nothing is out of reach; they seem to know all and aren't afraid of spilling it in front of an attentive ear. They never doubt anything they say and, if they aren't sure about what happened, they will lie about it with a poker face worth a million bucks.
Avoid gossip addicts like the plague. Stay away from them, don't pay them any attention and, most importantly, do not share any information with them. Anything you say can and will be used against you by the gossip addict, who will weave a fabulous story about you, adding just a hint of truth so the story is more palatable. You won't know it, but you will feel a slightly different attitude from others. Unless you're paying supreme attention to subtle non-verbal cues and body language, the sea change in how others treat you is invisible until it's too late to say or do anything to reverse it.
I believe gossip addicts are actually to blame for destroyed marriages, wayward children and deranged parents. I know it sounds like an exaggeration for dramatic effect but having recently been made aware that I am a target of gossip addicts, I realized I've actually been targeted by them my entire life, shaping who I am and how I behaved in front of my peers and family.
I recently moved out from my father's domain and found complete strangers who treated me in the exact same way my father did, with one key difference – they gossiped about me, fabricating complete lies that were not based on anything and only served to ruin my reputation and isolate me. It dawned on me that it was my father who spread the rumors about me, namely that I am mentally ill, which explained why I could never connect with anyone; as soon as my father got to them, they would be forever lost to me.
Any time I asked my father for advice or confided in him, he would use that information to spin more vile lies about me, creating this web of insanity around me. This led to, you guessed it, people treating me like I'm mentally ill, which eventually made me act that way. There was always something off about the way people talked to me, and after my experience with gossip addicts, I finally realized what.
The best cure for gossip addicts is to keep some distance from them. This includes physical, mental and emotional distance that truly soothes the mind and mends the heart. There's no such sensation as knowing that I can finally meet and talk to people nobody else knows about, giving me something I always yearned for – privacy.
I believe that this is the key signal that you're dealing with a gossip addict, the fact this person will never afford you any privacy. While it could be construed as a mark of affection and genuine concern for your wellbeing, which is what my father tried passing it off as, you should always presume that the person rummaging through your most intimate affects is a gossip addict. Then the reason for invasions of privacy becomes quite clear – the gossip addict is hunting for clues to weave into gossip, hoping to upset you so you play right into his or her hands.
Do not get fazed by gossip addicts and their devious schemes meant to turn you into a puppet. You're a living, growing being and your goal is to outgrow any kind of gossip spread about you. In essence, you should be moving and improving so quickly that any kind of gossip no longer applies to you by the time it spreads. If you are constantly building yourself faster than anyone can tear you down, you have in essence become invulnerable.
You can't change a gossip addict. They are truly and thoroughly rotten inside and there's nothing living that you could talk to. What you can do is live your life away from their sphere of rot and starve them of information. When you have a problem, contact a professional, such as a doctor or a lawyer. By the way, both of those services include a promise of confidentiality, meaning your secrets are safe with them. Well, isn't that a coincidence?
For me, the biggest obstacle was realizing that my father is weak and useless so he can't help me with anything even if he wanted to. Once I started acting that way, I stopped talking to him about my problems, starving him of information. When you have a problem, you should solve it on your own or talk about it to a professional who has experience, tools and willingness to help.
Once you identify someone as a gossip addict, do not trust anything he or she says. Challenge their labels constantly and cross-check it all with the person in question. Whenever possible, reveal that there is gossip running about a person and who's spreading it. When I learned about gossip on me, I was reeling for a month but am ultimately grateful for the truth. I then realized there's no yielding to these people and there's no appeasing them; you can only speak the truth to whoever wants to hear it and keep your mouth shut with those who will twist it to make a juicy piece of gossip.