People telling of their bad experiences with other people

[Tradd]

I don't know what it is lately, but I've experienced a lot of the following lately:

I'll be talking with people and somehow it comes up in conversation that I know someone. I've never had any issues with said person, but the people I'm talking with have the need to tell me the bad experiences they or a family has had with said person.

It has happened a lot, always with different people, and the person mutually known is always different, too.

Why do people have to spill their experiences I didn't need to know about. And it.s not like they're warning me either, just spilling the beans on something not my concern. Even when I tell them I don't need to know all this stuff, they just keep on going.

[sweetana3]

Gossip.

[babr]

i have learned that when people need to go about others its because they are having trouble themselves or an ongoing effort at people other people down because they feel inadequate etc.

i try to catch myself wthen i start down that path myself; and its usually when i am struggling with something; its too bad they aren't listening

[mattj]

I was preparing my own anecdote when I started wondering what it says about me to be saying negative things about people who says negative things about other people.

[razz]

I usually just make a comment that I ry to love the best and excuse the rest and leave people to figure that out.
It sure puts a stop to gossipy comments.

[larknm]

Need to elevate themselves, lack of boundaries, inability to forgive. In t his kind of case I think all three are related.

[Fawn]

I was preparing my own anecdote when I started wondering what it says about me to be saying negative things about people who says negative things about other people.

exactly what I was thinking :|(

[bagelgirl]

Sometimes people are struggling with something that went "bad" in their relationship with the third party, and they are looking for outside validation. They shouldn't, of course, but it's only human.

[JaneV2.0]

In situations like this, I always wonder what kind of dirt they're dishing on me when I'm not around. Whenever possible, I try to avoid gossip and gossipers.

[Mrs-M]

I tend to take this sort of thing with a grain of salt. People and their insecurities..... I don't like gossip (at all). I'm thinking back to our old neighbourhood, I had just given birth to our first child and several of us neighbourhood moms would get together at one another's homes one or two mornings out of the week to have coffee with each other. It was enjoyable and a nice outlet to let it out (woman style), but one home I quit going to. The woman (mom) was forever and always talking about everyone, negative things, so unhealthy.

[domestic goddess]

I often think that people are wondering if there is a better way to handle the situation. Maybe that's why I'm not always the "tea and sympathy" type person, though I do that, too, but I tend to think in terms of a problem that might have another solution. Sometimes that isn't always possible, but sometimes it is. Lately I have been falling into the trap of being too judgemental, and that needs to go.

[Rollergirl]

I think with human nature we are all guilty of a little gossip. I don't like gossip and I don't like people that do gossip, but I must admit I have been guilty of some gossip in my day, even now if I run into a gossiper I can be swept away with it. Most of the time I just try to be cordial, "Oh, really, didn't know that." Then excuse myself. "Gotta jet." ;) I do have one friend I've had since childhood. Love her dearly, but I avoid her like the plague. Her entire life revolves around drama and gossip. Ironically, she has a ton of friends...

[ApatheticNoMore]

Perhaps if we were all just pure uninhibited Id or something, there's just a natural tendency for the truth to out. Person A will say something about person C. And if person Bs strongest memory of person C is that they did em wrong then .... it's natural for it to come out. Natural might be ultimately to say everything that comes to mind. And then I think there's an additional charge that can be gotten out of gossip itself too (as in: woah this is fun! And then it becomes self-reinforcing).

Ok, but we aren't just pure uninhibited Id and people can be so about other things if they like, but they really should learn to shut their traps on the gossip. Because trusting relationships can't be built with gossips.

[Amaranth]

You can also try redirecting them to focus on solutions:

"So, how would you like for your relationship with her to be different?"
"So, how would you like to change the situation?"


and then
"What could you do to help get that to happen?"