talking about people behind their back: c or d?

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necessary evil? feels like i'm on the end of a particularly sustained and unjust bout of this at the moment (oppressive atmospheres in certain rooms, disontinuities in conversation) so i'll lean towards dud.

do you do it ALL THE TIME?

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I hate doing it. I can just about manage it about work colleagues (to people outside work), but when it comes to friends.. no, I feel v.guilty, if you're talking about badmouthing, that is.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:23 (twenty-two years ago)

hah i think it is badmouthing, yes.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Classic if they're standing right behind you!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it springs from having a very strong childhood belief in an omniscient god. The feeling that nothing I do can be hidden from divine eyes has been transferred into a niggling suspicion that the person I am talking about is somehow watching.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I was imitating a particularly-derided professor of mine two days ago and he walked right past our cackling group. He's so oblivious that I doubt he noticed, but I actually clung onto the person in front of me in a full embrace that I didn't relinquish for some seconds, as if I could be swallowed up in his coat.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:37 (twenty-two years ago)

talking about people within earshot AS IF you're talking behind their back: ABSOGODDAMNLUTELY CLASSIC

― jody (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:38 (twenty-two years ago)

That's so quaint, Tracer. How come you didn't respond that way when me and you used to talk about everyone behind their backs?

― Allyzay, Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Talking about people who aren't there AS IF they're in earshot: ABSOGODDAMNLUTELY MENTALLY ILL

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Because they can defend themselves, Ally! This guy is just LOST. From our last class:

(sound of funk band rumbling up from floor of classroom)

"Where the hell is that music coming from?"

(murmurs from students)

"We must be over the performance area."

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Are you taking "Come Get Confused By the Old Guy" classes or what?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Ned you don't even know. It's hard to get across without the hand gestures and ineffectual stammer but the first class we had he wanted to use the overhead projector and couldn't figure out how to turn the lights off. He fiddled with them for HALF AN HOUR. Most people left. Last week he actually told a classmate that he had to leave our seminar five minutes in because his wife had got theatre tickets. "Got to do what the wife says, you know." Not once but twice he's clicked on a Powerpoint slide of a computer file structure and expected the folders to pop open and reveal their contents. I jot down everything that happens in his class, except for whatever he thinks his lesson plan is. It's more interesting than trying to draw realistic representations of pint glasses at least, which is what I did the first couple of times I had the misfortune to get trapped in his classroom. I am evil. He deserves it though.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 29 January 2004 01:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Finding out about it later and discovering that what they're saying about you is bat-shit mental: On the classic side!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 29 January 2004 02:18 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread is brilliant now.

― Allyzay, Thursday, 29 January 2004 02:23 (twenty-two years ago)

"Got to do what the wife says, you know."

It's the teacher from the movie version of The Wall!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 January 2004 02:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I love eccentric old professor types. They're batty and come out with the coolest shit sometimes. This crazy old bugger I used to work with once told me he was windsurfing and found something in the water he picked up and ate (!!!!??!?!) only to realise a bit later it was a large chunk of HIS OWN FOOT that he'd gouged off 2 minutes earlier falling off the surfboard. Total nutter. He told the story with an airy straight face too.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 29 January 2004 02:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Now where did I put that puke bucket?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 January 2004 02:46 (twenty-two years ago)

OK, sorry to drag this back to the serious arena, but... back to the topic. This is something I worry about a lot, because I've been on both sides of it.

I *try* not to say anything behind someone's back that I would not say to someone's face. The operative word is *try*. But sometimes you do need to blow off steam about someone you otherwise consider your friend, and you need a neutral third party to do this. It's not malicious, and the third party needs to know this and remember it. Because too easily it can turn into a bitch session, become backstabbing and turn malicious.

Cozen, if you're in the middle of this, perhaps it would be good to remind the person doing the blowing off steam that you are neutral. (Unless of course, you're not neutral, in which case, you need to get your issues with the other person out in the open and address them.)

OK, now back to laughing at Tracer's professor. (Christ, I hope it's not anyone in the A.I. Department, now...)

― The River Kate (kate), Thursday, 29 January 2004 03:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmm, I have tried the "I sympathise but don't want to get stuck in the middle of of this" neutrality trick before and the person concerned got cross and then other people told me off too when I told them about it.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:01 (twenty-two years ago)

several girls came over to my place for pizza and videos last weekend and the first hour was a catch up of what we've been doing and what everyone else we know has been doing. we were certainly talking about people, but it wasn't intended to be mean or anything, just doing some pop psychology about our friends.

i tend to take the same attitude as kate and not be two faced about it. i won't be rude about someone behind their back and all friendly to their face. except my manager.

tracer, your prof reminds me of a TA i had at uni. my friend and i would spend the entire 2-hour seminar writing down classic quotes that he would say. highlights that i still remember are 'i'm really more of a punk monk. a celibate sexual deviant, if you will' and 'well, i don't know about you, but *i've* never been in the pope's closet'

i didn't learn anything in that class, but got an A+ overall based on my paper about 'Princess Diana: Charismatic Celebrity or Just Good Teeth?'

― colette (a2lette), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:08 (twenty-two years ago)

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