Do people make you the subject of malicious gossip?

Post Reply New Topic

I know that people gossiped about me, for I had people dislike me even before they met me, then encountering me and then behaving as if they knew me and treating me much the same way as someone who I did know.

Parents always tell their kids 'people have better things to do than talk about you' but in my case, that was completely wrong. And what I learned of was definitely only the tip of the iceberg.

What is it about people that makes them want to not only discuss people like us with people we do not know, and add malicious (and probably untrue) gossip to the mix? Do they truly have nothing better to do? What is it they seek to accomplish by spreading their hate?

Have you ever been a victim of a gigantic web of gossip?

No, but I had been cheated out of potential friends based on slanderous remarks made about me.

Idem

Idem

Yes, I've been the subject of malicious gossip. It makes me consider that my desire not to socialise with people, or even leave the house, is probably very sensible indeed.

I find that women are the worst... I'm recently widowed, but women I work with have nothing better to do than gossip about other people's sex lives. Rather than believe that I have no sex life, they have to make up stories... either I have no sex life because I'm frigid (my husband never thought so, and it seems bizarre to me that they think I should hop into bed with someone the minute he's cold) or I have no sex life because I'm a repressed lesbian. Then there's the other school of harpies who think I'm probably having sex behind the scenes with any man they see me with. Because it's a well known fact that women can't possibly talk to a man unless she's sleeping with him.

Another gossip story that got out was that I was leaving a mess for other people to clean up in the kitchen at work... despite the fact that I never ate in the kitchen. These are just little things, but the way they pile up constantly is enough to make you feel there's no point ever getting out of bed.

On top of that, my family do it too. They try to figure out why I act a certain way, and instead of realising it's just the way I am (I never remember birthdays or anniversaries) they always imagine I'm doing it deliberately to slight them. For example, I hate Christmas. It makes me feel sick with fear every year. I want to avoid it.

Apparently this means I hate them.

No, it doesn't... it just means I don't want to be forced to spend time with people, pretending to be happy when, in fact, I'm not far from suicidal.

Rumors have spreads that I was a lesbian when I was in high school and when I moved away, I found out there were rumors that I was getting married and then at my job there were rumors that I was pregnant because a few room attendants were asking me about "when is the baby do?" or "where's your baby?" and online there was rumors at zomgaspies that I was having sex with men.

Most likley they did, or they just went with the flow, I don't really know and it does not matter. Their opinions means nothing to me and I can live without having them as friends in my life. One of my few friends (NT) told me a little about how their groups work, and I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that.

I had the most awful rumors about me when I first moved to Palm Springs. First, they said I was a prostitute and made porno movies, then I was a druggie and on and on. Eventually, people figured out where I work and what I do, so a lot of it stopped. I just think it's people's nature to say things that may sound juicy to others...

Ya...high school was the WORST.....

Some pretended to be my friends, then said things about me behind my back, then I end up being the subject of ridicule and such.....it was a vicious cycle..They spread it around enough, that basically the whole school knew the rumour.I remember one time, they spread a rumour about me, and a teacher actually confronted me about it...she believed them....she was the witchy english teacher in grade 11 who i hated and who said i would go nowhere in life (I proved her wrong....Im attending Red Deer College).Anyways...she went on saying.."Are you.....".I said NO...she then said..."well a bunch of kids are saying....".I told her it was a false rumour.SHe shrugs and walks off. I HATE that woman..she was completely snobby and rude to me.High school girls are the worst when it comes to gossip and false rumours. Thanks to them, I still find my self looking over my shoulder wondering what people are saying when Im not around to defend myself.

Yes, it was bad up through college - I thought it would stop after high school, but I wasn't so lucky. Somehow at my second college they turned "awkward girl who likes cats" into "girl who hates people and wants to get plastic surgery to turn into a cat." I have NO IDEA how that rumor started, but people believed it and thought I was absolutely insane. And then of course when people found out I had both sensory problems and had made noise complaints in the dorm, that I was a just a huge brat who liked to make up things to piss of people and get attention.

I've had a few malicious rumours... a lot of people have gone round in the past saying I'm gay. I got driven out of a job about ten years back over that, because of the heckling and homophobia in the workplace, which I couldn't figure out until my last day, when someone told me...

The absolute worst one was at university, when someone who was throwing herself at me, and to whom I wasn't attracted in the least, got horrendously drunk on a night out we both happened to be on. After shoving her off my lap repeatedly, you would think I'd made my point. But she decided to follow me home, invited herself in, went off to be noisily sick, and then passed out on my bed. So I put a blanket over her and ended up sleeping in the lounge.
The following day, she's hung over and cranky when I wake her up to throw her out, without breakfast. But I made it pretty clear this had to stop, I wasn't interested. Two days later, I'm in the students' union bar when this big six-foot rugby player type throws his pint over me and is about to take a swing when he's hit in the small of the back by an equally large doorman. When he was asked why he did it, he pointed at me, swore a couple of times, and basically said that everyone on campus knew I'd raped her.

That took a lot of work (and a lot of time) to iron out, and the police were involved - I never did get an apology, which was meant to be the condition that I didn't make a complaint of slander, but she was cautioned for wasting police time and ended up leaving under a cloud.

I think it has to be said, spreading rumours like that is pretty damn malicious.

Yea, high school was the worst. Seems like EVERYONE thought I was gay. I'm not, I simply can't talk to girls... at all. >.<
I only realised the root of the rumors recently. When I was 14 or so, one of the girls that I thought was pretty called me and asked me out. I was so surprised that I said "no" without thinking. Thus, "He said 'no' to HER, he MUST be gay." Though, I'm sure that if I'd said yes, I'd have ended up being humiliated in some other way.

College (the first time) was bad as well. I did manage to make a few friends to counter everyone else saying "he's gay"

Now I'm extremely paranoid. I stress about what people are saying about me when I'm not around. I can't read their body language or expressions, I can't differentiate their sarcasm from their serious remarks, so I'm even more stressed, nervous around people, and have no idea how to cope with it. Even the few friends I do have look at me strangely sometimes. Thank God for common interests

I've never really had to endure any unsavoury gossip, but I did and still do endure a lot of pointless rumours spread about me. I think because I tend to keep my head down and don't speak about myself very often, I'm like a blank canvas for people to project far fetched stories onto.

At school certain people would go around telling everyone it was my birthday when it wasn't, so that I would have to suffer 'birthday beats'. On other occasions I would learn that I was emigrating at the end of the week, or that I was appearing on the following weekend's episode of Pop Idol. Often I would only find out about a rumour when a teacher wanted to know why I hadn't mentioned the subject before. Of course there was also the obligatory ' **** fancies ****' rumours involving various girls.

Nowadays I apparently enjoy visiting brothels and at home I like to dress up as Chewbacca! I know my work colleagues are only spreading this stuff as a joke and I'm not greatly concerned by it, but I don't see what they get out of doing it other than to test the gullibility of others.

Thankfully I've never had to put up with anything nasty like C-57D.