My mother always use to say "If you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all."

Gossip can be very destructive. It can grow legs and do real harm. It almost never dies and its very difficult if not downright impossible to defend yourself against it. People will believe what they choose to believe even if proof that they are dead wrong is laid before them. What does harm to someone else seems to be a form of entertainment for some, pathetic little low-life gossiper that they are.

Many years ago, when I had just graduated high school, I made the mistake of taking someone into my confidence. I fully trusted that person, but I was young and naive. I was proven to be a fool for trusting them. I needed someone to talk to - someone who would just understand. It didn't go that way though.

Said person took what I told him/her in confidence, and told someone else who told someone else who told someone else . . . and as the story continued on its way, it got spun and added to and changed in the most bizarre way. Part of my personal life, put out there for anyone who was bored, nosey, seeking personal entertainment, or whatever their petty motives were to engage in gossip . . . all of which was none of their damn business. It was about two years later when I found out that I had been betrayed. It got back to me in the most distorted and offensive form.

It really is a hell of thing to step outside your door in the morning knowing that an ugly rumor is circulating about you throughout the town in the most distorted form. I didn't know who thought what or who thought they knew what because people play games and rarely speak the complete truth. To one as young and as sensitive as I back then, what people thought was important to me. And of course, like so many gossipers, they think they know the truth. They think they know some dark hidden secret when all they really know is how to keep the ugly spin and rumors, even lies going. All they do is contribute to the harm they are doing a person who doesn't deserve one bit of it. But gossipers rarely care about that. They rarely care about their victims.

Thankfully I no longer live in that town. Thankfully the gossipers are all long gone from my life - everyone one of them. I will have nothing to do with them if I ever run into them again. Yes, its long in the past but they were old enough to know better. But it was a don't-care for them.

I learned a lesson a very hard way, but its a valuable one. Its now the rare person I take into my confidence - very rare person.

I hate gossip.