I smiled to myself earlier today when an older client was telling me about how snoopy his neighbor is. He said that his neighbor is relatively harmless but his non-stop questioning and spreading gossip is rather annoying at times. Because I know that neighbor, I laughed and said “I can never understand why there are people in this world who spend hours in a day doing nothing more than creating and spreading gossip.” He replied, “I believe that there are people whose brains have not grown up with their bodies. If you really look and listen to them more closely they remind you of young schoolyard children with their whisperings and tattling.”
After he left I begun to really consider what he said and I believe he is more close to the truth then not. Every family seems to have one or two who enjoy stirring the pot. Believe it or not, there are even Realtors who suffer from this form of social behavior.
I really don’t have a problem with general social conversations, but when it turns south and becomes dark and sticky, I can’t seem to get away fast enough. I will never forget an associate that I worked with many years ago who spent far too much time asking questions of people that I felt was beyond appropriate.
When I was a young and impressionable child, I found that I learned to copy my mother’s response whenever someone asked her a question that was none of their business. She would simply say after the question was asked, “So, who wants to know?” Believe it or not it worked very well and pretty much turned the inappropriate question back to the person asking. Subjects just simply changed.
I do wish that more of society would stop this digging for social and start learning to live their own lives. In the end, it’s better to mind one’s own bizwax.
