Chapter 342: Gossip Folks

Okay, so today kind of continued with the theme of the past few days – people confiding in me. It got a lot deeper today in ways that I REALLY don’t want to talk about here but today was a really emotional day for me in a lot of ways. Like I said, though, I really don’t want to talk about any of that. The other thing that came up also seems to be a running theme for the past few days, as well. As I discussed in last night’s blog, I have a long-running blessing or curse where people just always seem to feel like they can talk to me about their issues or problem or insecurities. Basically, people have a tendency to tell me things that they wouldn’t necessarily tell other people. Last night I discussed various ways that this can be both a blessing and a curse. One aspect of this that I didn’t really discuss about this whole thing is the other side of it. So, in the interest of continuity and not going into all of the stuff that I don’t feel like talking about tonight, after a blog post all about listening I am dedicating tonight’s blog to the opposite: TALKING. You see, it is really nice to have people feel like they can confide things in you and share whatever information they have with you but there are certainly downfalls to walking around with all of this information. The worst of these downfalls, though, is the temptation to share the information that has been shared. I can’t imagine that there is anybody out there who doesn’t understand this. There are various forms that this temptation can take, some much stronger than others, but at the end of the day I don’t think any of them are positive. Let’s discuss.

You see, one of the most common forms of temptation to start running your mouth about the information a person has shared with you is when you genuinely feel like you are doing it for their best interest. This is an experience that I have dealt with a lot in my life – whether it is somebody confiding a problem to you that you can easily resolve by way of sharing the problem with somebody else or two people telling you that they like each other but they are both too nervous to tell one another. It is very tempting to go ahead and share this information when you know that it is most likely going to wind up being a positive thing for them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way. There have been many situations in the past where somebody has shared their feelings about somebody else with me and I have gone ahead and relayed the information for them and things have gone badly. This is something that I have dealt with a little bit over the past few days, although it has yet to go badly and I don’t think it will in the end. Still, it is one of those things where I feel a little bad. I mean, it’s not like I just walked up to somebody and told them how another person was feeling but when they mentioned it on their own I went ahead and confirmed it for them. I don’t think it is going to wind up being a bad thing but I do feel a little crappy for having spilled a little bit and, perhaps, betraying the trust of somebody who I really care about. Like I said, though, all I really did was confirm what somebody else already knew. I don’t know – these types of talking temptations have a tendency to be very complicated but, more often than not, they tend to work out well in the end. There is still a bit of guilt involved there, though.

The worst temptation to talk, though, is when that talk is not talk at all – it moves into a very different place, most commonly known as gossip. You see, it is pretty natural to most people to talk about the people around them. Unfortunately, it is also natural to pick up on their flaws and the negative things about them and then discuss those with others when they are not around. That is pretty much the definition of gossip. I try not to do this very often. I try really hard, honestly, but constantly struggle with it. There are a few specific cases where I absolutely refuse to gossip or talk about the things that people have told me – the main exception is when it is information from people who I genuinely care about. There are a few other exceptions but that is really the main one. I refuse to share information that I have about people who I really care about unless it is general knowledge that I know that they would share if asked directly. The situations where it is most likely that I will share information that somebody gives me is when it is somebody that I don’t really know or care about and it is information that I have come upon involuntarily, like they specifically tell it to me without any sort of provocation. In particular, if it is information that is of particular interest to the people around me, I am most likely to go ahead and share it. This is a situation that I have come into over the past couple of days. I really only actually shared this information with two or three people but, apparently, they told two friends and so on. Basically, this information that I received yesterday was all over my workplace by this morning. Like I said, I didn’t feel all that bad about it because it is information that was shared with me without my asking or provoking it in any way by a person who I don’t know well at all and don’t particularly care to get to know well. Still, I also felt a slight bit of guilt about this situation. More than that, though, I found myself beginning to really consider the repercussions of this matter. The person who shared the information in question was not at work today but has a very good friend who sits really close to me and I would not be surprised if the fact that I told people about these things got back to them. Fortunately, I also don’t really care if this person knows that I shared their information. I am not concerned with whether or not this person likes me or if they feel offended by the fact that I relayed the information they gave me. Like I said, I didn’t sit there and ask questions about any of it – I was simply sitting there having this information forced on me. Therefore, I wouldn’t say that I feel justified in sharing this information but I don’t feel guilty over it either, really. What I do feel bad about, though, is the fact that I am one of those people who immediately wanted to share the information with the people around me. That isn’t really a positive thing. I will try better to hold my tongue next time.

Aside from all of that, it was a very emotional day for me for reason I don’t want to discuss or think about at this time. I got to leave work early today due to low call volume, which I was really excited about. I walked home from work with one of my very favorite people, Arielle, and we just hung out for a while. The plan, initially, was to spend the day lying in bed watching “Funny Girl” again. I did not wind up doing that. I basically spent the bulk of the day cleaning the house and cleaning myself. I felt really tired when I got home today and was kind of dragging for the rest of the day. Fortunately, this feeling settled in once I got home and I didn’t really have that off period while I was at work. It was really nice to get off early and I was glad to have a little extra time today to just chill by myself, especially with the news that I heard this evening that got me so emotional. At this point, though, I am completely exhausted – physically and emotionally. I am ready for bed. It is about 11pm and I think it is a good time to try to go ahead and get to sleep. I could use the extra sleep. Goodnight.