Dear Dom:

We, human beings, are animals, and not solo type animals, but herd animals. We need to belong to a group, starting with our family group and extending later to a group of friends. You have been one in a herd, this group of friends. The group engaged each other with heavy gossip as means of staying together, as the condition to stay in the group/ herd. You don’t like that condition anymore (and I agree that it is unhealthy to gossip and to be exposed to ongoing gossip) but you … didn’t outgrow your need to belong to a group. And you never will as a social/ herd animal that you are (that we all are).

It is possible that a few people in that group don’t like gossiping themselves but they are afraid to be kicked out of the group if they don’t participate in gossip. Nobody wants to be kicked out of the herd without having another herd, at the least, waiting.

You are already looking for a new herd with different rules, and don’t know where and how to find a new group to belong to. I have another suggestion to go with it: make your feelings known clearly within this existing group, clearly and not in a judgmental, condemning way. After all, there might be someone there who already doesn’t like the gossiping and would prefer another condition to stay in the group, another glue to hold everyone together.

So let them all know you don’t like to gossip and instead, let them know what you do want to talk about, be specific. Say; for example, I would like to talk about X.

Basically, this way, you are starting a new herd within the old herd. Maybe someone will join you by talking about X. A herd of 2 may be enough to hold you over until you find more people with similar values.

anita