How to Handle Gossip Without Becoming Part of It

Last year, I learned something very important about middle school. Drama is inevitable. You can be the nicest person, mind your own business, stay out of arguments, and somehow, still have people coming up to you saying,“Did you hear what so and so said about you?” 

I watched this happen between two people I know. One of them heard that the other person had been talking badly about her. Obviously, she was upset. I would be too. Nobody likes finding out that someone they consider a friend has been talking bad about them. But instead of going directly to that person, hashing it out or even just taking some time to figure out how she wanted to handle it, she started talking about her too. Then the other girl heard about that. So she got even more upset. Then more things were said, more people got involved, everyone started to hear different versions of what was happening. Eventually, something that probably could have been one uncomfortable conversation became a huge fight. Their friendship was basically over.

And the weirdest part was that after watching the whole thing happen, I kept thinking: This did not need to end with a whole friendship being ruined. Why couldn’t the girl just talk to her friend? That doesn’t mean the original person was right for talking about her. She wasn’t. But once someone does something wrong to you, you still get to decide what you do next. And sometimes we forget that. We think that because someone talked about us, we now have permission to talk about them. ‘They said this about me, so I can say this about them.’ At least, that feels like basic logic.

And one time, I was venting to my friend about something, and he told me something his dad always says to him. “In middle school, you cannot control the teachers, you cannot control the weather, you cannot control other people, you cannot control what they say about you, but you can control how you react to it.” And I took a second, processed and said "You're actually right for once.” Of course I was just kidding, but after that phone call I really thought deeper into what he said, and he genuinely couldn't be more correct.

Because when somebody does something to you, your first thought is definitely not going to be, “Wow. What a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate emotional self-control.” Absolutely not, you are mad, you're going to want to defend yourself, you want somebody else to agree that what happened was wrong and sometimes you want to say something back.

Also I want to add that I think sometimes people confuse staying out of drama with letting people walk all over you. If somebody is spreading something serious about you, you can address it. If a friend has hurt you, you can talk to them. If you need advice, you can talk to someone you actually trust. You can stand up for yourself without starting drama. There is a difference between saying, “What you said about me hurt me, and I want to understand why you said it,” and, “Well, if she wants to talk about me, let me tell you everything she has ever done.” Like If I am talking to one person I trust because I genuinely need help figuring out what to do, that is very different from telling five people because I want them to know what the other person did. If I am addressing the actual problem, that is different from adding every other annoying thing that person has ever done. And if the goal becomes getting people onto my side, I am probably not trying to solve the situation anymore. Even if everyone ends up agreeing with you, you still spent days being angry. People still got hurt. Things were still said that cannot magically be unsaid. And sometimes a friendship that could have been repaired is completely gone. 

That is what I saw happen. One person heard something. She reacted. The other person reacted to her reaction. Then she reacted to that reaction. And it kept going. At some point, the original problem barely even mattered anymore. The reactions became the problem. That is why I keep coming back to what my friend told me.You cannot control what other people say about you .But you can control what you give back. Sometimes controlling the situation means confronting someone calmly. Sometimes it means asking what actually happened before assuming the version you heard is completely true. Sometimes it means talking to one trusted person instead of your entire friend group. And sometimes it means deciding that something simply does not deserve any more of your energy.

I am still learning how to do that. I am not pretending that if somebody tells me they heard something about me, I am going to smile peacefully and suddenly become above all middle-school drama. I am going to have feelings about it. I might be mad. I might want to know exactly what was said. I might need to vent. But having a reaction and letting that reaction control what you do are two different things. You cannot always stop gossip from reaching you. But you can stop the gossip reaching anyone else, you can decide whether the drama gets bigger once it reaches you. Because sometimes the difference between a problem that lasts one afternoon and a fight that destroys a friendship is simply what somebody decides to do next. You cannot control the game, but you can control your next move.