When Stories Get Slippery
Over the last year, a version of me I didn’t recognize started traveling without me. It slipped from conversation to conversation - edited, embellished, and impossible to catch, eventually going full circle many times over until it reached me again, each time worse than the last. Early on, I realized my only goal was to stay consistent and true to myself, and to secure the outcomes I needed through patience and process, not reaction.
I’d always thought of gossip as social glue - something warm, funny, even intimate. I still love a good story. But being on the receiving end of a whisper network changed what I can stand by. This is my relationship with gossip, and what I’m learning about staying kind when stories get slippery.
Gossip can be good. Sometimes it’s harmless - human, even. Swapping stories is how we bond, make sense of the day, and laugh together. I love the podcast Normal Gossip for exactly that reason: it treats stories like campfire tales, not court records. But the line is thin. What starts as connection can tilt into a game - who knows first, who knows most, who belongs - and the goal quietly shifts from sharing a moment to shaping an outcome. That’s when it stops feeling like glue and starts feeling like leverage.
Before this, I kept landing in the same setup: “Have you heard about Joe?” “What do you think about Jane?” Sometimes it felt harmless, sometimes like a test. I took the bait - curious, eager to belong, or unsure how to exit without killing the vibe. Knowledge is also power; it helps you navigate spaces more carefully and intentionally.
But a lot of what we call gossip is a status game: be first, be inside, be needed. I’ve played it. It works... until it doesn’t. What I notice most is how easily “good people” language launders the harm: concern, care, context. If the point is to rank ourselves or trade access, it isn’t care. I want closeness that doesn’t need someone else’s privacy as proof.
It should have been obvious to me, but I see now that not every story is shared in good faith. Sometimes the intent is to cause harm - status, revenge, control, or simple spite. That motive exists alongside curiosity and connection, and pretending it doesn’t only makes people easier to use in a game. Naming it helps me set tighter boundaries without turning every conversation into a courtroom. Projection also thrives in whisper networks. In my case, harm done to me was retold as harm done by me.
In hindsight, the supply was abundant but also very selective. The same behavior earned outrage for one person and excuses for another, depending on who the storytellers liked. That inconsistency told me as much as the stories themselves, and I wish I’d have caught it earlier.
Here’s the other ache: the right to respond. Gossip moves in rooms you’re not in. It edits you into a caricature, then bolts the door. Corrections never travel as far as the first version, and the people who’d most benefit from hearing you out rarely circle back. I don’t think every story deserves a public trial, but if the story is about a person, the person should have a path back into the room.
I’ve had to do a lot of work to decide whether “believing by default” is something I can still do, at least to the same degree, after being on the receiving end of stories that were, at best, sensationalized and, at worst, objectively false. I’ve landed on yes, but what I do with stories has changed. I can support the person in front of me, and I don’t need to share.
I don’t fault people who believe by default no matter what. There’s kindness in that impulse. These days, though, I value the friends who also pause for context, even if they ultimately disagree with me. That pause is respect. For now, I’m quieter. I opt out when gossip starts, and when something is shared with me, it stops with me. I’m choosing connection that doesn’t require collateral damage.