About a month into my relationship with my ex, or former-somewhat-exclusive-hookup, he told me that he had been surprised that he liked me, given all that he had heard of me before our relationship started. Umm, what? I pestered him at the time to explain what he meant, but I didn't get too many details.
This surprised me because: a) everybody likes me and b) I don't really gossip.
I have just never been that interested in it. I didn't even gossip at my 500 person boarding school. If you want to argue that Dartmouth's small size and isolation fuel gossip because we all know each other and there's nothing else to do, all I can say is that you have no idea. Girls in my dorm would literally play "20 Questions" using other students as the answer, which was essentially a test of how well they knew everyone else. I, meanwhile, would learn that a couple had been dating only after they broke up.
I'd love to say that this trait of mine was due to the fact that I refused to engage in something so immature that had the potential of hurting so many people. Really though, I didn't gossip because I wasn't interested in it. Gossiping required listening to other people's stories and quite frankly, mine were usually better. You want to tell me about how she lost her virginity over break? Great. I'll tell you that I did the same, but that it was to my brother's best friend. One up'd.
I'm obviously a very open person. There are few things that I wouldn't want anybody to know about me and I simply don't tell these things to anybody. I can't say that I've ever been personally hurt by gossip. Nor can I say that there is any gossip about me that I didn't bring on myself, whoops. My Saturday and Sunday mornings sophomore year were usually filled with me updating my roommate, Jen Argote '10, about all of my adventures and escapades from the night before. Of course, I rarely listened to what she had to say back to me. Really, I just like the sound of my own voice. Little did I know that as I was curled up on our futon (or on the floor if the futon was unusable) , clutching my Gatorade, Jen would blitz out the raunchiest of these stories to her new pledge class. Usually with a subject like "HELP! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY TO MY ROOMMATE ABOUT THIS??" Which I guess was cool, because it gave me facetime.
But it became significantly less cool when I realized I had built up a bit of a reputation for myself. Thank you pledge term, Jenny Fisher '08 (my big), and Sigma Delt.
I would normally not care about a reputation, but this one seemed particularly unfair. The kinds of stories that are interesting to spread, the ones that create the best gossip, are always the most extreme of them all. And usually the worst. Even though I could entertain Jen with stories of breaking into the then-under-construction Hitchcock (can I get in trouble for admitting to this now?), it seemed that people always knew about the most scandalous ones.
Nobody finds it interesting to gossip about extra-curricular or athletic achievements. And unless you have a 4.0, nobody really cares about how well you do in school. Gossip paints the most extreme picture of a person. Before you even meet someone, you know all about the time she was good sam-ed and shut down the Tri-Kap dance party, but you'll have no idea that she rarely drinks and prefers to spend her Saturday nights watching movies with a group of friends. No, you'll assume that she's one of ragiest (yet also most obnoxious) people out there.
Which brings me back to what this ex of mine had thought about me before he ever met me. I never got him to tell me specific stories, but given what I know about gossip, I think I can piece together a (not so pretty) picture. Is it accurate? Meh the stories have probably been exaggerated. Is it fair? I think not. Is it worth talking about? Definitely.
So I'll see you out tonight Jen I have a reputation to maintain.
