Campfyre Stories

I love gossip.  I love to listen and I love to tell, but only when it’s about real people.  Celebrity gossip isn’t interesting to me because, as far as I’m concerned, those people aren’t real.

I think it ties in with the storyteller in me.  I love to read, to listen and to tell stories, but I have very clear guidelines about what stories are and aren’t appropriate for me to share.  I know I’ve said it on my blog, probably more often than out loud to someone, "That isn’t my story to tell."  More often, it’s a matter of that story being one that shouldn’t be public, but can be told by me in certain circumstances.

I think that gossip has a really bad name.  It’s too closely tied in with rumors and malice, but I don’t use it that way.  I like to know what’s going on, specifically with people I know or who are not too far removed from me.  That said, I am also extremely protective of the people I care about, so if I have harmful information, I won’t share it, or will share it without revealing the players.  Generally more the former than the latter.

But I do love a good story and so do most of the people I know, so we share, even when we’re not personally invested in the person we’re listening about.

I both love and loathe the stories that start with "don’t tell anyone…" because it generally means that a good story is starting.  Eventually the "don’t tell anyone" will go away in most cases, and once we get to that point I have a full story and the freedom to tell it.  Sometimes that can last for years.  I think there’s an unspoken rule that "Don’t tell anyone" pretty much applies to "anyone who knows these people", but even more often it only applies for as long as there is a friendship.

Don’t get me wrong, I know the difference between a good story, gossip and a secret and when tasked with the keeping of a secret, I am a worthy safe.  I have never disclosed a real secret from a friend, even when the friendship had dissolved.  Well, at least, not with names and specifics.  Sometimes there’s a book-to-movie or "based on real events" kind of adaptation going on, but that happens with even our own personal experiences.

A week ago I found myself gossiping with the 14 y/o daughter of a friend of mine.  Another friend asked "How can you gossip with a 14 y/o?"  My answer at the time was that we know a lot of the same people, but thinking about it further, while that’s still true, it’s more of a situation where we like to hear real stories about real people.  It doesn’t matter if I know the same people she knows…  I remember being in high school, and I can relate her stories to my own experience.  That which is out of my realm of experience is good information to put forward when trying to understand the world that Spawn lives in.  The names and faces may change, but the stories occur over and over again.  For her, it’s a glimpse into what she can expect.  Again, the specifics may change, but the generalizations remain true.

This is why people watch soap operas. 

Think about it, what is a soap opera other than slices of gossip?  When people find other fans of a show, they discuss what they think will or should happen and they become invested in these gossip-riddled lives.  Certainly OUR lives aren’t quite as rapidly-paced or as drama-filled, not on a daily basis, but it feeds our desire to know about the things going on around us.  With the exception of people all-too-often coming back from the dead, chances are we’ve (tangentally) experienced most of what goes on in a soap opera.

I can’t help but wonder if the people who watch soap operas are the people who are disconnected from the stories of the people around them, or if they simply don’t see the parallels.  The medical crisis, the extra-marital affair, the dysfunctional family, the troubled child, the love triangle, the court cases…  how many of us haven’t lived through most of these, if only vicariously through others?  Sure, when you’re personally involved or invested, it’s not nearly as entertaining (for the most part), but when it’s your cousin’s best friend’s sister?  Entertainment without the investment and, often, without the overacted melodrama.

Isn’t that why we read personal blogs?  I mean, really, what do you get from my writing other than gossip…  from me, about me more often than not?  The filter here is to give the best, most interesting, most unusual, most important (to me) stories, is it not?  And to take it further, why else would I read the blogs of other people?  Of course I’m looking to be entertained…  not by fiction, but by the honestly stranger-than-fiction gossip that people are not only willing, but eager to share with perfect strangers.

It expands our social networks.  It gives us frames of reference for people we may some day meet.  It tells us that we’re not alone in the problems we face or the drama we try to navigate through.  We become invested, not in the lives of other people as much as in the validation that the things we’re going through aren’t anywhere near as bizarre or unheard of as we thought they were.  We take comfort and solace in the misery of others because it helps us to realize that we’re not alone.

And we gossip.  Because it’s really nothing more than sharing information that’s not going to make the news (or, in some cases, sharing information BEFORE it makes the news).  But it’s news to me, because at it’s core, this is the stuff that really matters.  The real stories of what’s happening to real people.