One of the most difficult things about living in Skagway, particularly in the winter, is the way gossip works here. It makes it difficult to maintain a personality that includes the trait of caring very little about what other people think, because in a lot of ways it's just like being back in high school again. Because sometimes what other people think of you has actual ramifications, even if what they think is grounded in false rumors and bald-faced lies.
I didn't really care about it at first, because I was still in that mode of not caring what other people think and not thinking that it mattered. My first winter it started actually making a difference. When I went through what I did with Allen, I went from someone who had a bunch of friends and a lot of acquaintances to someone who had approximately three friends in town and zero acquaintances. What's ironic is that, though people would refuse to meet my eyes, smile or wave like everyone does to each other here, they had no problem making up rumors and lies to spread about me and Allen. It was a shitty situation to begin with, and the realization that I had no support outside of three people made it even harder. It wasn't only that I didn't have support that made things difficult. It was that when I went into the grocery store, post office, bar, hardware store, bank, I could only stare at the ground as I walked through, because I didn't want to meet anyone's eyes.
I don't care what anyone says about keeping your chin up and not caring about what other people think. When an entire town has seemingly decided to erase you from existence, what they think absolutely matters.
That was, of course, the worst gossip that I'd dealt with until recently. But I can't even begin to list how many other times gossip has affected my life. I'm certain that it has stopped people from being friends with me, and I'm also unable to deny the rifts that it has caused in my relationships.
There was that time that someone told my boyfriend that my friends were at the bar talking shit about me. I had a breakdown. The friends in question had always been there for me when no one else had, and this information upset me to no end. I confronted the friends in question, separately, and they both shrugged and said "well, yeah. But it's not like I said anything I wouldn't say to your face." Someone else saw them saying bad things about me and perceived it differently than what it was, and for a few days it really upset me.
When my partner was out of town trying to get doctors to solve the medical mystery that was preventing him from being able to eat for a few months, the rumors then were rampant and shameless. While someone was in physical agony and scared because no one could tell him what was going on with his body, people had a field day coming up with reasons why he was out of town. He was on vacation; he was visiting family; there was even one that said he was hiding out in our house under our bed, in Skagway the entire time. Does that sound like the type of thing that someone in that type of situation needs to be worrying about? His work situation was made even worse than it already was by the fact that people decided to make up lies about why he was out of town. Even people that we thought were friends were saying these things, using quotation fingers to describe his "illness" as if it weren't real.
When I broke up with Allen and then started seeing Steve, lots of people apparently said I'd cheated on Allen with Steve, a rumor almost undoubtedly started by Allen. That wasn't true. After Steve and I broke up, a few months later I started seeing Stimee -- guess what -- people seemed to believe I'd cheated on Steve with Stimee (and i wonder who started that rumor?). Sure, who really cares what people think? I could be worse things than a serial cheater. But I didn't cheat on either of those people, and I don't like my integrity to be threatened or questioned that way. In a town where I was struggling to stay afloat, I didn't need potential year round employers to think I was a drama-hungry vixen.
Then there's always the little ones. There was the rumor that I was pregnant, shortly after the rumor that I had a second boyfriend. And, because it isn't always about me, there've been a lot more rumors about my friends that I've dispelled at least to the person who told me. One of my friends had a medical emergency that sent her out of town on a medevac a few years ago. Someone casually mentioned to her recently "that time you OD'ed and had to get flown out", to which she replied with the natural "HUH?!??!" They're all pointless, but they aren't all without consequences.
The latest one that's prompted all of my thoughts on gossip in Skagway probably isn't even worth mentioning. And you know, when it all comes down to it, the way it should work is that the people who are saying things that aren't true obviously don't know me very well or else they'd know these things weren't true. But unfortunately it isn't always the case.
I'm a little more secure now. I know that there are more people in the past month who are supportive of me than there are who are talking badly about me. And it's pointless for me to even pretend I don't participate in gossip, because obviously I do. But if there's one thing I've learned over my five and a half years in Skagway it's that some things just aren't worth re-telling. Not to mention the realization that everything anyone ever tells me about anyone else needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
I wish it didn't bother me when rumors about me make their way back to me. I also wish I didn't participate in conversations about gossip so I couldn't be a hypocrite. And while I like to think that the conversations I do participate in aren't harming anyone, the fact is that probably the people talking shit about me don't think it's harmful either. It's kind of a vicious cycle and it's hard to not be a part of it. I'm optimistic, though, because I care a lot less now than I used to.
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