Can a Gossiper Be Gagged?
When neighbors talk and talk, plus fur-trimmed gifts and milestone birthdays.
My neighbor likes to dish the dirt about everyone in the community. Divorces, political affiliations, occupations of in-laws, and locations of summer homes are often brought up. I feel burdened by the information. I also do not want her to discuss my private life with other people. What can I do? Our children are close friends, and we often rely on each other for child care.
M.F. in Arlington
I hate to tell you this, but there may not be much you can do to reduce your chances of being gossip fodder. The dirt-dishing habit is an extremely hard one to break, and your neighbor might not be sufficiently motivated to change her ways for you. And, of course, there’s no sense trying to keep her from finding things out – if your children are close friends, she’s going to know all kinds of things about you that you’d rather she didn’t. It’s the nature of the situation.
But there’s no point declaring failure in advance. Try a two-step process to get your neighbor out of the news business, at least where you’re concerned. Whenever she starts discussing the business of mutual acquaintances, tell her that you’d rather not know these kinds of things. Be prepared to repeat this frequently until she learns. After you’ve told her a few times that you don’t want to hear gossip, mention that you’d prefer if she didn’t tell other people such things about you, either. Say this in as neutral a tone as possible; you don’t want to spark defensiveness. Your goal isn’t to get her to completely rethink her approach to other people’s personal data; it’s to get her to respect your own stricter boundaries, even if she doesn’t understand or share them. She may wind up telling all the neighbors what a nut for privacy you are, but that’s a risk you’ll have to run.
A friend and I have been going through a rocky patch (caused by a hurtful action on her part), and she recently gave me an expensive birthday gift. The present is a delightfully funky handbag, just my style, with one glaring exception: It is trimmed with fur. I’m an avid animal rights advocate and abhor the use of fur as a fashion accessory. My friend is dealing with some daunting personal issues, and I suspect she chose the bag when she was harried and distracted. What matters to me, ultimately, is that our friendship survives its recent strains. Thus, my dilemma: Do I explain that while I very much appreciate her gift in the abstract, I cannot use the bag? Or do I keep quiet? If I take this route, am I sacrificing integrity for the sake of not upsetting the proverbial apple cart?
M.B. in Somerville
I sympathize with your desire to say something. It’s natural when a friend gets us fundamentally wrong in some way to want to correct them, to say, "No, no, I’m not that person. I’m this person. Me. You know me, right?" But what, really, can be accomplished at this point by telling your friend about her misstep? Is she likely to give you more fur-trimmed gifts in the future, thus supporting the fur industry?
If your reasons for telling her are fundamentally about you – asserting your values, affirming your identity – I’d suggest keeping quiet for the time being. Shove the purse, and your awareness of it, onto the back shelf of your closet until such a time as your friendship is steadier. (When there’s less baggage, as it were.) From what you say, your friend is probably feeling like a bit of a screw-up these days, between her original "hurtful action" toward you and whatever personal problems she has going on. Being informed of yet another faux pas might be extremely demoralizing and cause her to pull away from the relationship.
This doesn’t mean you’re sacrificing the integrity of your beliefs. It means you’re making a choice to prioritize one value (friendship) over another (animal welfare), at least temporarily. And we all make dozens of these kinds of values trade-offs every day.
As a baby boomer, I’ve witnessed my friends turning 40, 50, and 60. In several cases, their spouses threw birthday parties when they reached these milestone years, and I gave thoughtful birthday gifts. I have even given generous gifts when there was no party. When I turned 50, I didn’t have a party. Though my friends knew it was my 50th, they gave me no gifts, and my feelings were hurt. Do you think it was a thoughtless omission?
M.B. in Marlborough
I see. So the gifts you gave your friends weren’t "gifts," per se – a word that carries with it the implication of joyfully free bestowal. Rather, they were the quids of a quid pro quo: I give you a goodie for your birthday-ending-in-zero, you give me one for mine. You should have thought to inform your friends of the obligations that they were incurring when they opened their presents. Since you didn’t, there isn’t much you can do about it at this point, except perhaps to reflect on how deeply unbecoming it is for a 50-year-old to whine over not receiving birthday presents.
My Word
Children don’t learn good manners in a vacuum; social skills require practice. Be tolerant of occasional bad behavior in public as long as the parent seems to be dealing with it. It is inevitable for toddlers, every now and then, to start a tantrum in Starbucks – but they should not be allowed to finish it without being taken outside.
Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology. 