Anonymous wrote:What's the difference between gossip and sharing news about family and friends?

Gossip is idle talk that tends to have a negative bent.

Anonymous wrote:What's the difference between gossip and sharing news about family and friends?

Good question, but the answer is that you'll know it when you see it.

'Aunt Jeannie got divorced.'
-Or-
'Aunt Jeannie got divorced. Turns out she was in a heap of debt, she and Don hadn't been sharing a bed in years. Some people say he is gay, and then there was the time he drove out west for a month...'

(This is verbatim from the house of my in-laws.)

I have no advice, just want you to know I'm going through the same thing!!

What's the difference between gossip and sharing news about family and friends?

Ohh OP, hope you are not married to one of my in-laws. The last time my in-laws visited they started gossiping about a close relative to a point where i just couldn't take it anymore. I looked at them directly in the eye until it got awkward, then I whispered a few times to DH... by the end of the night my FIL was like " I am sorry if it sounded like we were slandering xxxx" I just smiled. Hope next time we can all have meaningful conversation.

Aww, I think they sound fun.

Your MIL and my MIL would be best friends.

One time I listened to a lengthy story about how an immigrant family was driving a Mercedes! Gasp! She is obsessed with people who have money (she is not poor)
I can't even begin to tell you the details I have heard about family and friends medical information. Do I really need to know about that cousin's colonoscopy? No, thank you. Aunt's uterus? Didn't need any details about that one.

Looking through her, changing the subject or anything else does not work. I just smile and nod through it. Of course, to her she is not a gossip she is just keeping everyone informed. Needless to say, she is the LAST person we tell any information to.

I tell people that gossip is against my religion. Usually shuts them up.

Anonymous wrote:Whatever you do, learn to filter what they know about YOU - because whatever they know about you will be all over town.

That's it.

Oh, don't I know it.

This is an example: THREE people in their town congratulated me on my engagement one month before my DH proposed to me. Evidently he had told his mother he was going to propose in a month.

Whatever you do, learn to filter what they know about YOU - because whatever they know about you will be all over town.

That's it.

Anonymous wrote:Best way I have seen to handle this is just to look at them. Make sure to avoid making and expression on your face and keep looking at them (as if you are looking through them). This really starts to get awkward about 10-20 seconds. Then change the subject = ask another person in the room about a recipe or something very trivial. Repeat each time the gossip starts. This seems to work for me. I got the 'trick' from my MIL- LOL. And it works beautifully.

OP here. Good advice!
I do this already... With little effectiveness.
Any additional tips like these are so helpful.

Thanks!

Best way I have seen to handle this is just to look at them. Make sure to avoid making and expression on your face and keep looking at them (as if you are looking through them). This really starts to get awkward about 10-20 seconds. Then change the subject = ask another person in the room about a recipe or something very trivial. Repeat each time the gossip starts. This seems to work for me. I got the 'trick' from my MIL- LOL. And it works beautifully.

3 days? Why not 1.5?

show them this forum.

In short, the in-laws will spend our entire visit gossipy about family and neighbors. (This is what you do in their small town.)
Remind me how to handle it.
I usually keep my mouth shut, or try to change the subject, b/c I know this will change.
But is there anything I CAN say about the gossip?

And if you are wondering why it bothers me, it does bother me that 1) gossip is such a boring use of conversation and 2) they gossip about everyone, offensively and nosily, about everyone, including me.