When did men catch the gossip bug?

Gossip is defined as a conversation about the personal details of other people's lives, whether rumour or fact, especially when malicious. A gossip therefore is somebody who habitually discusses the personal details of others' lives.

Walter Winchell said: ‘Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid.’

For years, behavioural experts and evolutionary psychologists have long argued that when it comes to too much talking and gossip, our female species have more complex brains for it, and they have perfected the game over time until social media hit the scene. That is when the men who have hitherto confined their talk on politics, marrying at beer parties, crawled out of the woods.

Marilyn Monroe once said ‘When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.’

Today men rival women in gossip to the extent the derogatory remark of ‘wacha umama’ (stop behaving like a woman) got its official place in our  everyday  chats when chiding such men who have   the habit of back biting or  gossiping. Today men have become expert peddlers of lies and half-truths more than women. They have being smitten so much so that gossip has become their other name.

There have been situations where such rumors have almost cost lives or marriages. They say a lie can travel half round the world while the truth is still tying its shoe laces. In the past, such gossips were confined to the village or at the riverside as women went to fetch water, but with today’s fast rate of internet connectivity, by the time truth comes around, the lie will have spread wide.

 Experts say that much of the human behavior is the output of psychological adaptations that evolved as a result of or constant interaction and manipulation of environments around us. Due to that men who gossip do so as a result of sitting with women all the time.

People who know you least have the most to say about you. As for your acquaintances, the moment they stop talking to and with you, they start talking about you. Woe unto you if you are a leader or an authority. Those who haven’t even stepped into your house will talk about everything you do in your kitchen. Some of them have become the omnipresent narrators who follow you from one place to the other without actually being physically present. They know when you ate mandazi kavu, when your wife landed some hot slaps on youthful cheek in the bedroom and when you are about to die and of what.

As Vanna Bonta joked ‘It's weird how people who are the least close to me or who've never even met me purport to be experts on the real me; and then, sadly, there are those who could be in touch with me but prefer to gossip with strangers about me instead.’

They will tell us what killed the late Otieno Kajwang, what Rt. Hon. Raila went to do in Nigeria early 2015 or what President Uhuru Kenyatta is doing in state house at 3.00am all these without butting an eyelid.

Slance Scurvin, writer at ThyBackman.com wrote ‘……drama and confusion is a sweet drug to some of us and they simply cannot see why someone would not want to taste their juicy nuggets and titbits of verbally destructive insignificant chatter…….’

Edward P. Sri  in his piece The Art of Living: the Feathers of Gossip opined: ‘We often do not realize the power of our words. Our words can be used to build up or to tear down. ……..Very often, however, our speech is used in a destructive way. We tear down others when we point out their weak points, criticize them, or complain about them when they are not present. We may, for example, start off speaking positively about someone, yet add a “but” in the middle of our sentence that precedes mentioning a certain fault or annoying point we think that person possesses. “He’s a great guy, but sometimes he talks too much.” “I love mom, but sometimes she can get on my nerves.” Such detraction is not necessary and diminishes the honor that is due to the other person…….’and quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, he adds ‘issuing injurious words with the intention to dishonor someone is sinful. Words that expose someone’s faults to the detriment of his or her honor thus should generally be avoided ….’

 It is   emotionally and psychologically galling to read on social media or blogs or even hear of blatant lies about things you have no clue about, but which are attributed to you. But more irking is when it dawns on you that such dirty talks were started by your male friend! You can easily be convinced to forgive a female friend for spreading the rumors about you for it is often assumed in the general public, that’s part of their nature, but a man?

Thus I to ask again; when did the men catch the gossip bug?

Someone once said fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a gossip. Indeed gossip can be very destructive to say with far reaching consequences to the victims, yet you find the world today seems to be running on gossip fuel.

No wonder someone wrote,’ If gossip were food some people would be overweight.’