<p>Sometimes, not knowing something about your friends is simpler than knowing
something you know you aren't supposed to know…</p>
<p>TL;DR: If you are gossiping, please handle information which change attitude
towards others with care and maybe share them with consent of the <em>listener</em>. <aclass="footnote-reference"href="#on-gossiping"id="footnote-reference-1">[1]</a></p>
<p>Some time ago, I was casually talking with my friend, let's call them Alex.
For one reason or another, we got to gossip and I learnt a new, very private
information about our mutual friend, Bay. <aclass="footnote-reference"href="#names2"id="footnote-reference-2">[2]</a> I knew Bay would not
expect me to know or possibly even want me to know at that time, yet the new
part of their identity would require me to behave differently around Bay in
order not to hurt them. <aclass="footnote-reference"href="#non-disclosure"id="footnote-reference-3">[3]</a></p>
<p>That turned my interactions with Bay into a bit of a minefield:</p>
<olclass="arabic simple">
<li>If I behaved according to what I learnt, I may easily overstep Bay's
boundaries and invade their privacy, possibly quite badly. <aclass="footnote-reference"href="#my-privacy"id="footnote-reference-4">[4]</a></li>
<li>If I kept my old behaviour, I would feel like I am actively hurting Bay.</li>
<li>If I accidentally slipped my tongue in front of Bay and they notice, I still
ending up invading their privacy as in point 1.</li>
<li>I am also prone to sharing the gossip, maybe accidentally. I would be to
someone else what Alex was to me, and I certainly didn't want to cast this
"curse" on anyone. <aclass="footnote-reference"href="#gossip-circumstances"id="footnote-reference-5">[5]</a></li>
<li>If Bay subconsciously noticed I am behaving in line with their secret and in
another interaction I wouldn't, they could feel invalidated (without an
obvious reason why).</li>
</ol>
<p>It sucks, it made talking to Bay needlessly stressful. Please don't do that.</p>
<p>So, to reiterate the message: <strong>Please gossip *safely* and *consensually* about
stuff that is private in nature and would change attitudes towards people.</strong>
For the queer stuff, this can be rephrased in layman's terms as <strong>please just
don't out other people to people who do not explicitly want to know.</strong><aclass="footnote-reference"href="#consent"id="footnote-reference-6">[6]</a></p>
<!-- ReST wtf, why can't I put emphasis in strong? -->
<p>(Again, maybe gossip safely anyway, but for the "regular" gossip you can
usually hide what you know without feeling that bad.)</p>
<divclass="section"id="final-remarks">
<h2>Final remarks</h2>
<p>I wrote this post mainly to raise awareness and help learn from past mistakes.
It is not meant to shame Alex for telling me, they might not have been aware
and neither were I at the time.</p>
<p>Apart from the role as "me" in the story, I also were "Bay" a few times,
luckily not with a too intimate part of my identity. And while I try not to be
another "Alex", I cannot rule that completely out unfortunately.</p>
<p>This post has been a long time in my backlog (~6 months maybe), it is not a
reaction to any recent gossip I have heard. (The points I make still hold ofc,
but lately I only heard "the ordinary stuff" which I will probably just forget
and not care about without harming anyone.)</p>
<p>Lastly, Bay eventually told me themself, so my life is peaceful again. I didn't
ask if I am allowed to talk about that and with whom, so I err on the safe side
<tr><tdclass="label"><aclass="fn-backref"href="#footnote-reference-2">[2]</a></td><td>I originally wanted to have the friends be Alice and Bob, but that
might support the narative that "girls gossip", which is sexist and IME not
accurate (more like "everyone gossips"). So I made my friends be of
ambiguous gender and use they/them pronouns. Sorry, this might make the post
a bit harder to read, but the stereotypes need to die :-)</td></tr>
