Gossips are desperate people.
They need drama, love conflict and are so deeply unconfident they feel compelled to tell and spread accusations and stories about others in order to feel a sense of superiority, or to be able to play the ultimate role of the victim.
The first thing to understand when dealing with a gossip is you are not dealing with a person who is emotionally stable no matter how together they may appear.
For this reason, tell them very little about yourself or your role at work beyond what they need to know or what directly impacts them.
A gossip may appear to care about you, to be interested in what you have to say and to be a person you can trust.
What they are really doing is determining how to manipulate you, live off of you, covertly bully you, and suck you of your emotional well-being.
These types of people thrive on emotional reaction and attention.
Gossips live off of the emotions and fears of others, they are parasitic.
The best thing to do is detach as soon as you’re aware they are after your attention, information or emotional reaction.
Get as far away from these people as possible, they have nothing real to say, nothing of value for you to think about and are only using you to be recruited onto their team.
Gossips never work alone because they aren’t powerful alone, they are in need of a team of lieutenants to help them create their storm.
So, what to do with them?
When someone is trying to involve you in an offensive gossip relating to someone else, the best thing to ask is: Why are you telling me this?
This is effective for a couple of reasons.
First, the question immediately disrupts any self-serving motive from the gossiper.
Second, the phrase forces them to face the fact that you’re probably not happy about being involved.
Almost every time, the person initiating the gossip will be taken aback by the question.
They will not have a good excuse as to why they are including you in the conversation.
Based upon their response it’s much easier to simply then say: “I don’t wish to be involved,” or “You should discuss this with him/her personally.”
