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If You Are Aware Of Someone Talking Out Of School About A Friend, Do You Tell Them?
Ask the collective
I was faced with this question over the weekend. I have an alcoholic friend who recently hit bottom and found her way to AA. This is the first time she has ever shown up at their door. She has been in denial about the severity of her problem but when she hit bottom, she did so with such a thud, she was in a meeting the next day and she has been going regularly ever since.
I am very proud of her and understand enough about addiction to know her sobriety is precarious and I feel very protective of her. Actually, I feel very protective of anyone who is trying to right their life so when I found out someone in this gal’s inner circle was blabbing on her… well, what to do?
The gossip was revealing highly personal details about this gal’s last night drinking and the person who told me about it was snickering. He was mocking her which told me a lot about how this information was shared. It was catty. So do I call her and let her know?
I thought about this long and hard. You don’t want to jeopardize a person’s sobriety and I wondered if this was a case of, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” But on the other hand she’s got a fox in the henhouse, you know?
In the end I called her and she was terribly hurt. She told me she had been warned about this girl before but had overrode her better judgment… we all know how that goes.
It’s a few days later and today we spoke again. She said she dipped down pretty low, having the information but had steeled herself and said she now felt stronger and more resolved to be sober. I was greatly relieved.
I really don’t know that I did the right thing. But I realize with Mars conjunct Mercury in the righteous, up front and blurting 9th house, I really don’t have the capacity to look at a friend and withhold information that is pertinent to them. What about you?
If you know someone is talking (nasty) behind someone’s back, do you tell them? Why or why not?
7 Responses to “If You Are Aware Of Someone Talking Out Of School About A Friend, Do You Tell Them?”
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First, I’d like to say I agree with what you did. Bravo! Your friend is going into recovery and it sounds like she doesn’t need the blabbermouths holding her back in this way. They sound like jerks–and my apologies if they are close to you. She does need to know about the fox…
But I don’t do this. I don’t tell people. A couple of reasons why: I want the ‘buck to stop with me.’ Also, I am trying to take life to the next step and grow the courage to say: “Your behaviour is not right, you are not being a very good friend to XXX by talking shit about them, and I don’t want to hear it.”
I have a Pisces pal with her NN in 12th House Pisces and she says this to people a lot: “I’m offended by this talk.” They usually apologize to her, when they’ve talked about someone else!
Anyway, there’s my aspirations, Pisces-like…
It really depends on the situation. If it is something very important, yes. If it is simply gossip that would only hurt the person if they heard it, no. It is pointless.
I do tell the person who is gossiping how I feel though. I make it very clear how I feel about it and them for doing it.
For the record, the gossiper wasn’t talking to me, or I’d have confronted her big time. I heard through the person she talked to and did not confront him because he’d have turned around and dialed the gossiper as soon as I hung up to say… ‘Elsa is pissed and will probably tell. ”
Instead I acted as if it were nothing so there was no breech. Then I thought it through and decided to call her. I don’t think this is necessarily true for all but in my case, I just don’t have friends I would keep information from (to protect them). It seems more respectful to tell them they are being betrayed and let them figure out what they want to do about it, up to and including dumping me, the gal with the bad news.
Bottom line, I just couldn’t sit on it. I could see the gossiper buddying up to my pal for some more info so she could run around badmouthing her with it. Ugh.
If the person is shooting their mouth off right in front of me, I do damage control of whatever variety is called for. If the person is being an ass, I hit them hard. If they’re simply badly misinformed, then I try to set them straight.
And then I wait and see what happens. If they knock it off, or if they’re in no position to affect the person they’re babbling about, I let it go. But if they keep it up or try to tamper with the person, then all bets are off. That goes double if they’re blithering about someone close to me.
In my opinion you did the right thing (mars in cancer in the 9th). This was not a situation to be mocked. This probably gave her more courage to do what she needs to do.
I would have done what you did, mars merc conjunction in the 9th as well, but in sagittarius. I would want my friend to tell me, if I was the subject of conversation, so I would want to do the same for them. Especially in a situation like that.
I’ve run into this a lot, where people don’t tell me these things till years later and I end up feeling so stupid and used by the person that’s shit talking. I really wish people would just tell me so I know the truth!
It can be hard for person being betrayed to hear the truth, but I think you have to tell a friend about the knife in their back. You did the right thing.
Some people are into character assasination and this behavior has to be exposed (Mars in Scorpio, Sun and Merc in Cap and 8th).