Must dash,got a seat booked at the Minibus cafe!
My driver will be coming for me any moment now!
WAS YOUR CONGREGATION A GOSSIP MILL?
by badboy 20 Replies latest jw friends
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badboy
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buffalosrfree
Was it ever, I remember two sisters in particular, they and thier daughters knew just about every bit of gossip there was to know about any and all jdubs at their current congregations, and also about those who had moved within the past few years.
What I thought was odd, is that when we would be around them and ask, whatever happened to ...., we would get a full blown intell (gossip) report from them. When pointing out that we just asked about them to be polite they would look at us as if we were from a different world.
At gatherings these two would be surrounded by more busy bodies and the news about so and so from this or that congregations would fly, I was always amazed about just how much gossip there was in this spiritual paradise (so called that is).
Talks from the platform about gossip would just increase it, as they seemed to figure there was something out there that they had missed, when pointed out to them in private by us that they were very gossip conscious, they would agree and say so what?
I guess they must have missed the point.
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upside/down
The typical (female) greeting when getting into the car was.. and I quote,
"So do you want to hear the latest "gossip"?"
I sh*t you not!
Erma Bombeck said once- They say the great American past-time is baseball... I disagree, it's "gossip".
If "gossip" were snow, our congo was a F'n BLIZZARD! I don't recall people (men and women) being like this since I was about 13 yrs old.
u/d
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rebel8
Yes, definitely. The in-crowd would find out the info and then quickly spread it around to everyone else. Whoever gets to find out the gossip first gains increased social status. I think catching up on gossip is one of the main motivating factors behind going "out in service" and to meetings.
What I found disturbing went way behind an active gossip mill. It was the total lack of interpersonal boundaries. Sista X would tell her good friend, Sista Y all about her sex problems with her husband. Sista Y would then spread it all around the entire KH, and Sista X wouldn't be bothered in the least. Nothing was personal with them.
When I left the JWs, I still had a big problem with gossip. I behaved that way because that's the way I was taught to behave. I gradually realized it was offensive to others. It took me a long time to realize that people do have private lives, and being a gossip and butting into people's private affairs is rude and obnoxious.
Now I think I'm on the other extreme--I am a very private person, and I go to great lengths to respect others' rights to privacy.
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ValiantBoy
You betcha. My home cong was in a town with a population of 700. Most of the cong lived in town. We had about 30 publishers in a four block radius. You couldn't pass gas without the whole cong knowing it.
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Poztate
If "gossip" were snow, our congo was a F'n BLIZZARD!
LOL...If it wasn't for gossip everyone would fall asleep in field service as well as at the hall
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jeanniebeanz
You couldn't pass gas without the whole cong knowing it.
Sounds like you guys had it worse than we did... that actually sounds painful.
J
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Elsewhere
Yup!
Once I arrived at the KH for a regular Thursday night meeting. Almost as soon as I walked in the door people started coming up to me to congratulate me and shake my hand.
I started asking WHY everyone was making such a fuss... and that is when I learned that I was getting married!
"Really?" I asked, "To who???"
That's when everyone went dead silent.
They told me that sister so-and-so was spreading the word that I "popped the question" to her.
I responded: "Sister who?" (I had no idea who she was)
They pointed her out to me and I recognized her as one of the "marginal" JWs... you know, one of those who tries really hard but never manages to be accepted in one of the "in" clicks.
Sadly it turned out that she had some mental issues and "fixated" on me without ever really knowing me. In her mind she invented an entire relationship that never really happened. I was 25 and she was 35 with two kids from a previous marrage. She was even telling her little children (about 6 or 7 years old) that I was going to be their new daddy. The poor things would beem and smile really big when they would see me at the KH.
What amazed me was how quickly her comments about me spread through the congregation. I was even interrogated by the elders wanting to know "what I did to her". All of the sudden I was the one on the defensive. They wanted to know if I was manipulating her when the only time I had ever talked to her was once while making assignments for a field service group.
It literally took MONTHS to sort out. She finally confessed to some elders that she had made it all up.
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baysixforme
Gossip was rife in my congregation but I suppose that with all of the rules we were meant to adhere to, merely by being human some if not all were bound to fail at some point.
We did have the really prolific gossipers though. These types were particularly eschewed by the upright, those "at the centre of the congregation".
The funny thing was though that although many talks delivered from the platform condemned such practices, gossip in many ways brought a welcome relief to the usual adherence to rules.
My view is that gossip per se can be damaging and 'not right' but in my experience the gossip I was privvy to gave me a valuable insight and the realisation that people are only human.........It helped me to break away!
Bay64me
