Straight Men Need to Gossip More

Most likely the most important newsletter I’ll ever write

There are a lot of downsides to being a woman - earning $0.836 to every $1 a man earns, operating on a twenty-eight-day hormonal cycle when the world is built around a twenty-four-hour clock, getting spit on by a man on a skateboard on a random Wednesday (true story that happened to my sister - see below.)

The “waterproof winter gear” really made me giggle

However, there are a lot of really fun and beautiful upsides to being a woman. The feeling when you’re with all your best friends getting ready for a night out, having a skincare routine (you can argue with me on this one, but I’m pro), and most of all, gossiping.

Recently, I got to celebrate the engagement of one of my dearest friends. About twelve of us all congregated together in an Airbnb in Atlanta for the weekend, partners included. One morning, the girls with chronic anxiety that contributed to an inability to sleep past seven in the morning were all lying in bed together, yapping about this and that. The men (one fiancé and one boyfriend, to be exact) somehow found their way to us, probably due to my obnoxiously loud laugh, and came to inquire why we were talking so loudly before nine in the morning. One man stood, the other sat on the edge of the bed, clearly unsure of where they stood within this sacred ritual of rehashing old drama and memories that had already been rehashed three decades over. We decided to engage with the party crashers. “So, what do straight men talk about when you’re all together?” Said men really had to think on this one. “Um.. probably sports, random Instagram videos we saw, sometimes politics, coffee… I guess other stuff?” We turned to them, clearly disappointed with this answer. “You guys never talk about people you’ve previously dated? People that annoyed you? Your high-school science teacher? Or what about after a night out, do you go through the events that happened and psychoanalyze them?” Distraught thinking faces ensued. More umms and time passed. “Honestly, no… I mean if we’re pressed about it, maybe, or if something really dramatic happened, but most of the time that’s just not where our minds go.” Pity and sadness filled my heart. It was looking more and more favorable to be a woman and be spit on than talk about Instagram videos and cold brew in perpetuity.

When did we all start gossiping? Where did it come from? According to an article from The New York Times in 2010 (which may as well be the Stone Age at this point), “The earliest recorded piece of gossip… is roughly 3,500 years old, according to the author Roger Wilkes. ‘Cuneiform tablets dating from 1500 B.C. chronicle a Mesopotamian mayor having an affair with a married woman,’ he wrote in a 2002 book, ‘Scandal: A Scurrilous History of Gossip’.” Of course, the first piece of gossip was about a woman, and of course, it was about sex. “Godsibb” originally referred to those who had a spiritual kinship through baptism (“god” as in godparent; “sibb” as in sibling). The Oxford English Dictionary finds the word first used in 1014, while Webster’s “Word Histories” points out that Chaucer’s Wife of Bath mentions her “gossib dame” — which, by the end of the 14th century, had come to signify a friend or confidante. With the innovation of the printing press around the mid-1400s, gossip took a strong foothold. There are gossip columns from 1800s London focusing on (you guessed it) the scandal of divorce, of sex, of women and their wardrobe. There were books written in the 1930s specifically dedicated to gossip around the art world and the entertainment industry. The famed YA series and T.V. show Gossip Girl will forever live on as a core tenant of many people’s formative years. Fast forward to today, and gossip is the lifeblood of our cultural correspondence. People have dedicated entire careers to discussing other people (people like Perez Hilton and accounts like Deuxmoi come to mind, specifically.) These days, there’s niche gossip for pretty much any industry you can think of, all available at the swipe of a finger.

But the type of gossip I’m talking about is the kind that occurs at three in the morning at a sleepover when you’re analyzing the person who broke your best friend’s heart or the kind at a dimly lit wine bar when you get into the nitty gritty of your childhood. Talking about topics that are deemed to be frivolous, “too much,” unimportant, or none of my business has been one of the most important ways I’ve bonded with (mostly) women throughout my life. Gossip gets a bad rap for being cruel, mean, and degrading. I won’t pretend like I haven’t engaged in that type of gossip; obviously, I have, because sometimes it’s a necessary and fun way to regain power or control or emotions that have been taken from you by another party (especially gossiping at work about an idiot boss or shitty coworker - there is nothing more satisfying than that.)

The real misfortune here is that straight men don’t even know what they’re missing with their lack of participation in this type of gossip. I did, for investigative journalism’s sake, reach out to some straight men I know and have included their answers below (and is pretty much what I expected it to be - only gossiping with their girlfriends, or their best friends that live miles away, or a work coworker only about work.) Gossip creates a bond of emotional intimacy based on mutual destruction - each party is going out on a limb in trusting the other with salacious, deeply personal, or unpopular information. This trust glues friendships together and builds bonds for a lifetime. This is what strikes me about watching and learning about the typical male friendship - the lack of intimacy and depth in a way where I’m always wondering if they know their best friend’s birthday.

Congratulations to the upper right-hand corner - you’ve beaten your species

As I touched on in my Love Debts letter, friendships - their glue, their weak points, their strengths - are something I think about a lot. How are friendships maintained when the deep stuff isn’t drugged up? When most of your interactions are based upon the topical things from your day or week and not the complexities of your worst nightmares or the overwhelming happiest memories? The mess that makes you the most scared, the decisions that make you the most frustrated, the regrets that surface every once in a while that take your breath away. And when you don’t have this outlet for a coping mechanism or emotional depth, where (and whom) do you turn to?

We women have graduate degrees in the lore of our loved ones. I could probably tell you the most embarrassing moments from my closest friends’ lives (slipping and falling face first in a cafeteria at work while holding tater tots at eight in the morning on a Tuesday in front of her bosses) and some of their proudest (cooking a Thanksgiving dinner from scratch every year for twenty people in a New York City apartment kitchen.) We remember who threw up where in college, who made the wrong decision with that three am text, the ups and downs of parental relationships, the cockroach emergencies, the rejections that hurt the most.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on the male friendship (and it probably has more dimension than I’m giving it, but for argument’s sake.) I actually really love and find it to be hilarious the way that when men meet each other for the first time, they settle into this comfortable groove of sports (of all kinds), different cities they’ve lived in, types of jobs they’ve had and beer they like, with absolutely no gauge for the awkwardness of newness. Meanwhile, when women meet each other for the first time, there’s at least a ten to twenty-minute period where we decide if we love or despise this person (or love them and hate what they’re wearing, or despise them and want their shoes.) But what do men actually know about each other? Do they know about each other’s anxieties? Embarrassing promposals? Loneliness? Imposter syndrome? Getting caught in high school with a bottle of whiskey in your closet and being picked up from lacrosse practice with said whiskey buckled into the front seat?

I’d like to assign homework because my position of having absolutely no authority allows me to do so. I’d like to ask everyone - man, woman, child, but especially man - to gossip more. Not just topical gossip or celebrity gossip (although I do think it's a ball of fun, and if anyone reading this wants to write a guest letter on specific gossip of their industry, I’m all ears.) I want real gossip. Real, human, authentic, cringe, probably shouldn’t say this out loud type of gossip. Maybe once a week, pick a friend or two, and have a meeting of the minds. Talk about the thing at work that made you uncomfortable or the conversation you had with a family member that made you really happy/sad/confused. Maybe about an old ex who confusingly likes all of your LinkedIn content (such a weird medium for that type of stalking, I’ll never understand it) or a friend who's going through a crisis and how to help them. Gossip doesn’t have to be negative, dramatic, or only focused on the painful or extreme. This will not make you a bad person or a bad friend. It will make you a more empathetic, mindful, connected person and friend. Some starter topics for those that find this daunting are middle school math teachers (mine told me once I would never amount to anything above someone running checkout at a grocery store - guess time will tell!), your worst friend and/or romantic breakup story, a summer memory that made you the happiest, your favorite intrusive thought. Don’t be afraid to get deep, to dig in.

Do you want to know more about when my sister texted me she got spit on by a man on a skateboard? And how did she feel about it? And what happened after? And if she did or did not chase down said man and break said skateboard? You’ll have to call her and gossip about it.