07 Jun Dealing With The Fear Of Gossip
Now that we’ve tied up the arc of Teenage Crush with our latest episode, I feel I want to talk about one of the major influences behind why it was written. The story of it was born out of my experience with heartbreak, but it wasn’t due to romantic rejection. The gossip-infused plot was based on my experience with a writer kicking me out of their critique group.
Let’s call this person: Kelly.
I had been a member of Kelly’s writer’s group for years. I went to almost every meeting. I tried my best to develop close friendships and working relationships with its members. I had hoped the people of the group had nothing but good things to say about me as they made me feel like I was wanted at every meeting.
Anxiety and trauma tend to taint perspective.
People in my past have spread gossip about me before and used that power to break up childhood friendships with it. And, so it goes.
Most of the writers in Kelly’s group seemed to trust my feedback, they would look to me, especially in those moments when they had just finished sharing their latest chapter, short story, or poem at a table read and the feedback portion of the read was met with dead silence.
They’d single me out and ask, “Josh, what do you think?”
In part, I believe it was due to my honesty, politeness, and – hopefully – a genuinely supportive air I have about me.
After the ice was broken with an initial comment, there were some fascinating discussions that came from those table reads. We were sharing and a big part of that, at least for myself, was listening to the other members as to their thoughts on best practices in regard to storytelling. With an activity like writing, being as solitary as it can be, participation in a writing community can turn a dour, lonely writer into a peppy, silly storyteller. The group’s interest in our working relationship didn’t feel fake, it felt authentic.
It was hard not to walk out of those table reads without a smile even on a bad day.
Out of the blue, one day, Kelly, the group leader, direct messaged me, she said that I needed to part ways with the group.
“She looked to me for advice when dealing with members who might have exhibited dangerous behavior that might threaten the group, such as the guy who said he was being hunted by a cartel.”
This exclusionary tactic was out of character for her.
In fact, my first thought was: is she having a mental health crisis or drug issues?
Which was followed by: I hope she gets the support she needs.
I asked her, if was she okay or if she felt I had done something wrong that I could reflect on or even apologize for.
She just kept repeating that I should go my own way.
There were no reasons given as to why my membership was revoked.
Heck, she didn’t owe me one.
But it was a confusing interaction.
Everything between us over the years as coworkers had seemed friendly and positive up to that point. Kelly invited me to every event where she read her work and she was delighted to see I had shown up, especially when the others couldn’t make it. She offered me job opportunities with renowned, published writers. She looked to me for advice when dealing with members who might have exhibited dangerous behavior that might threaten the group, such as the guy who said he was being hunted by a cartel. Kelly proudly sold me one of her first books.
I considered this person to be one of my closest writing friends.
So, naturally, being booted out of her writing group hurt.
Then the anxiety kicked in.
Many intrusive thoughts rushed through my mind during self-reflection. I was scared that if I was unconsciously participating in toxic behavior, I wanted to be aware of it, so I could change and stop hurting people like Kelly. My gut reaction to most things is to look inward and learn. I was afraid if I didn’t show up to the next meeting, it’d look like I was one of those people who gave up on writing. Or, worse, someone who had done something gross or inappropriate, like the guy who ran through one of our group sessions in just his underwear. I was scared Kelly was going to attempt to destroy my reputation with rumors about a misdeed, I knew nothing about, or one she had just made up. She was an influential figure in the scene. But the candid nature of her non-fictional stories seemed to shed light on the fact that she had her own problems.
Kelly wasn’t offering me any answers, and I didn’t want to bother her any longer, so, I reached out to the other group members, and asked them if I had offended them in any way with my behavior. They all replied to me in an overwhelmingly positive fashion. Some of them even went out of their way to advocate for me, when I told them I didn’t want them to jeopardize their place in the group for little old me, they were persistent, and they tried to bridge the gap between Kelly and I. They also came up with no definitive answers as to my ejection from the group other than they suspected she might be having a mental health crisis.
Every time the subject of the group drama came up with its members who I kept in touch with, ones who weren’t savvy to the drama, they’d say, ‘Hey, where have you been? We miss you.’ or ‘Are you going back to the group at any time?’.
In the meantime, when people tried to take sides, I continued to encourage them to attend the table reads at Kelly’s group, regardless of the drama, because it was made up of a solid community of writers.
Unfortunately, Kelly took my reaching out to the other group members as an attack on her leadership. She DM’d me once again and said, You are sewing dissent within our group members. It further shows how you aren’t fit for it.
It was my intention to find out if I was unintentionally exhibiting toxic behavior, while at the same time respecting boundaries, at that point my investigation had nothing to do with her.
But again, the hold she seemed to have on me, sparked my fear of the possibility that destructive gossip was being aimed at me.
Every time the subject of the group drama came up with its members who I kept in touch with, ones who weren’t savvy to the drama, they’d say, ‘Hey, where have you been? We miss you.’ or ‘Are you going back to the group at any time?’.
I’d try to shrug it off and say, “I’ve decided to stop going to that one in particular.” And kept the details vague. I didn’t want to harm the community in any way or Kelly’s reputation.
With hindsight, maybe it was best I was more honest with people, but that’s neither here nor there.
To my close friends, a small select group of people, I showed the DMs Kelly had sent me. I went into greater detail with these members of my support network, a brutally honest bunch. They confirmed that I wasn’t the one doing wrong.
However, things still didn’t sit right with me.
“Dealing with my anxiety fueled by the possibility of gossip became easy to deal with with such a straightforward answer.”
A month down the road, I started my own group so that I could keep in touch with those peers I had lost touch with.
That would mean I was running two weekly writer’s groups at that point.
I made sure to pick a day that didn’t conflict with any other of the local table reads, Saturday. And people showed up.
Until summer came and people naturally dropped off.
I looked back through the messages, to reflect on my behavior with Kelly’s confrontation and I noticed at the peak of it, she had said, “At the end of the day, this group is for me.”
That was the only answer I needed to know to solve this conflict that I was making out to be more complex than it needed to be.
When boiled down to its bare bones, she was giving me a simple ‘no’. ‘No’ you’re not welcome. ‘No’ I don’t want to be your friend. Gossip or not, I needed to continue to respect boundaries and not beat myself up so much.
I let sleeping dogs lie and moved on.
When enough time had passed that I found humor in the drama, it started to come out that other people were being approached by Kelly in private. She would DM them and tell the person to stop coming to her group. Yet, again, with little to no reason. These were people who had proven to be quite kind, at least in my opinion, people with conflict-adverse personalities.
I hated to admit it, but I felt sympathy for Kelly, that part of me that still considered her a friend was worried about her.
More time passed, and Kelly reached out to me. She broke the silence by saying, “Have you had enough time to think about what you’ve done?”
No context was given. No one in my support circle had been able to surmise the reason behind her words. And Kelly wasn’t offering me further information as to what I should be reflecting on. I felt like it was being gaslit. I didn’t respond to her DM and decided if people might be saying things behind my back, then that was none of my business. Gossip, or no gossip. My rejection of access to the group was just a simple ‘no’. ‘No’ you can’t come to our meetings anymore. ‘No’ you aren’t welcome to any further information about this matter. ‘No’ I don’t trust you. Just ‘no’.
And I respect the word ‘no’.
This personal epiphany answered the itching questions brought on by this mysterious conflict with Kelly. Dealing with my anxiety fueled by the possibility of gossip became easy to deal with with such a straightforward answer.
My personal story didn’t explode like the drama in Teenage Crush: Part Three, but if you are interested in reading or listening to a fictionalized account of how gossip can corrupt a person’s character, click here.
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Josh Ackermann escapes his desk job by writing in his free time. One of his short stories, One Helluva Headache, was published in the English Bay Review. He’s currently revising two of his first novels. And he’s is the creator of the Falling For Stories podcast; among many other titles.