On the Nose

I grew up in the town where I currently live. My mother grew up in the same town. My family operated businesses (all in some way real estate related) in this town since the 1950s. Accordingly, quite a few locals know me, at least in passing. Most don’t anymore to be sure, especially relative newcomers. (I closed my Main Street office in 2014.) To the overwhelming majority of residents I’m just another anonymous face. But enough do, especially old-timers, that it is rare for me to go the market or to lunch or some other local public place without getting at least one nod or wave or “Hi Rich” from someone other than the staff. The reverse, of course, is true as well. Among the many strangers in those places there is always someone I know at least in passing. (Fewer each year, truth be told. I sometimes joke that I know more local residents in Hilltop Cemetery than I do above ground, but the “joke” is very nearly true.) On the occasions when conversations happen in such encounters (as when someone familiar sits at the same lunch counter and says “Hi Rich!”) I am likely to hear gossip about other old-timers of the “Did you hear what happened to so-and-so?” sort – mostly because I probably know who so-and-so is whereas a newcomer would just respond with a bewildered shrug. (I’m not above offering gossip, btw; I just don’t have much on tap anymore – that I care to share anyway.) In turn I’m likely to get an occasional mention in similar conversations among others – again, not as much as in the past, but it still surely happens.
 

My mom at 13 in the center of town 1941

Gossip gets a bad rap, but anthropologists and psychologists argue that it is normal, human, and an evolutionary benefit both to the species and the individual. Some argue that humans owe their primo advantage (language) to gossip. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar for one writes, “In a nutshell, I am suggesting that language evolved to allow us to gossip.” A hunter-gatherer group will max out at about 150 people (it generally splits when it gets any bigger), which are few enough that everybody knows everybody. Navigating the very complex and constantly shifting social structures within this community (knowing who is doing what with whom and how that affects your status) is crucial to personal and reproductive success. Not many of us live in groups and villages of 150 people anymore. We might not even know our own neighbors. (I know my own neighbor’s name only because of mis-delivered mail.) So, modern gossip (masquerading as news) instead tends to be about public figures we all recognize (strangers though they may really be), but the old fashioned personal type within social cliques and subsets still occurs too.
 
Theophrastus in his list of character types (c. 300 BCE) wonders at the motives of the Gossip: “It is a standing puzzle to me,” he writes, “what object these men can have in their inventions.” I suspect Theo was just feigning ignorance in order to seem less like them. The motive, whether self-acknowledged or not, is and always has been social status. This is most obvious when gossip is weaponized as it so often is in the workplace… and the damage it can cause is the source of its bad rap. None of us wants to be targeted in this way. It is why we recoil from nosy questions from would-be gossipers. It is why we consider some questions to be nosy. (Alternate spelling: nosey.) Financial questions are always sensitive except among close friends and family – sometimes even there. We often learn the hard way how answers to “How much do you earn?” or “What was your bonus?” can be used by others in the workplace for their own negotiations – often to your detriment. Even in a nominally non-competitive social context (in reality there is no such thing among any species of primate) nosiness can be off-putting because of its potential social harm to us. What question is nosy and what isn’t depends on how close and confidential a relationship is, of course. Just a few examples of ones I have gotten in the past year from casual acquaintances include:
 
            What did you get for that property you sold?
            Do you have a mortgage on your home?
            [Those two are public record, if anyone really wishes to check.]
            Why aren’t you married?
            [I usually answer this one with “Because hell hasn’t frozen over.”]
            Why don’t you have kids?
            [Just lucky, I guess.]
            Since you don’t have kids, who are you leaving your estate to?
            [I get this one repeatedly and usually answer with “I plan to spend every

            cent.” This might be true.]
            How much is on your credit cards?
            [Yes, this was a real question.]
            Did you do a lot of drugs in the 60s?
            [The 1960s or my 60s?]
 
I actually don’t mind these inquiries: I don’t answer them seriously but I don’t mind them. I long ago (not as far back as high school regrettably, but long ago) learned to deflect them. I find nosiness irksome only when it crosses over into active busybody territory, e.g. the person who asks if you bought a new boat and, if the answer is yes, then calls the police because the boat trailer in your back yard violates some obscure zoning ordinance. It is the person who confronts a neighbor because a “Yard Sale” sign violates a homeowners association code. It is the person who calls social services on parents who let their kid walk to school. A woman once called the police on me because my car broke down in a No Parking zone; they arrived while I waited for a tow truck, but didn’t write a ticket. I won’t tell the name. That would be gossip.
 

Bull Moose Jackson - Nosey Joe (1952)