The movie ‘Cruel Intentions’ introduced children of the nineties to a sordid type of human; one that is self seeking, sexually driven and unashamedly envious of any and all competition; this repulsive type of person is quite reminiscent of today’s female. Interested in success, envious of other women, a stumbling block to themselves and sadly, sometimes also to their friends. In this movie, they said ‘keep your friends close and your enemies even closer,” and we do.
This week I was chatting to a friend about how much easier it is to be nice to people, how much less energy is exerted when you smile rather than snob off someone and how if everyone embraced this attitude, we’d live in a much more harmonious world. Her response illuminated another perspective, that being nice to everyone was fake, was two-faced and too one dimensional. If nobody spoke their mind, everyone would be nice, nice was boring and therefore nobody would be making headlines and we’d have nothing to gossip about and nobody to make us feel superior over other ruder beings. She had a point.
Painful as it is to admit, women love to have a bit of a gossip. We are leeches to any information that will expose weaknesses of another person and although we all participate (and I’ll admit I gossip too) – the practice itself is disgusting and destructive – not just to the person’s self esteem but also to ourselves as supreme beings. We stoop and become the enemy, thriving off the exclusive access to information that we have.
Women follow a pattern in such situations. They will fake a smile to the girl they are judging, cling tight to the girl dispensing the gossip and at an opportunity to socially climb we will wisely dispense that information to another, for access to a new friendship, to fill time, sometimes consciously, other times just because, more often than not it is rarely justifiably…or is it.
Before I chastised everyone who shares in my crimes, I searched to understand the psychology behind it….and in the process found an answer that suited me.
Nigel Nicholson, Ph.D pins gossip down to evolution and our natural instincts to survive in the animal kingdom. He explains that there are two sides to every story (der!) and with gossip there is the heart warming emotions linked with the forming alliances and finding belonging within a social circle, the second is that gut-wrenching rage when we are placed on the receiving end of the gossip, realizing that we will be damaged in some way through this means.
Nicholson claims that we are evolved to talk. That makes sense I thought, after all, Eve was created as a companion for Adam and as such, since the start of creationism, two were always better than one. Two could not form a pair however if they were mismatched and this is why we network; to find like minded people who share our loves and hates and in doing so form exclusive cliques that keep out the outsider. Once the outsider is spotted we influence each other’s decisions to maintain our standing within a group and in doing so form alliances that protect us from the scorn of our friends.
The dark side to this is that by gossiping we exclude others, we are more likely to be gossiped about and as we fuel the fire, many get burnt (think the late Princess Diana and the paparazzi’s fatal pursuit of her private life…of gossip).
However, the often paralleled pursuit of Kate Middleton may have led her to the altar today. As the gossipy tabloids labeled the Princess-to-be, Waity Katie, Kate was reminded of her worth and demanded of Will, that she wait no more…and that’s the thing about gossip…. as toxic as it is, it somehow, it acts as a code of ethics; reminding us of what is acceptable and what is condemned and gives us an option to choose to wear our halos, horns…or Sapphire engagement rings.
And just before my male audience, label us women venomous and vile, my trainer revealed this morning that you men do it too. You just disguise and re-label it. As he chatted to me about who was sleeping with who at the gym and which men was an accessory to two affairs, one formerly attractive man, became the elephant in the room and in gossiping I was spared from scandal.
My trainer revealed that while we call it gossip, men call it character assessment.
Call it what you will, I thought…gossip is gossip and according to Nicholson, essential to survival. Armed with the knowledge that gossip is innate, I will work to only positively analyse people, to be inclusive (not just to people like me), and will try to keep my friends close and make friends out of frenemies......right after girls’ night tonight and the necessary gossip we’ll have.
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