anyone who says women gossip don't pay enough attention to guys, specially when they talk about women. what is it to me that you don't think x girl dresses well or that this aspect of her is unattractive? we're at work, it's not tinder

Ugh, that's some hostile shit.

I'm sorry you have to deal with it-- even just hearing it.

Too right. I'm aware this varies from culture to culture, but where I am if management overheard that sort of talk you'd probably be hauled in for a disciplinary.

@tosensei i mean, gossip has a social function, but what bothers me in this case is how women are treated as a spectacle to be commented on. that's something everyone does, and i catch myself doing this sometimes. people will always comment on women's appearance before their content

@tosensei there's reason to believe gossip has a primary role in the development of language: https://youtu.be/zHmoWNIO6eo

it's a bit controversial, but i think it makes sense

That's totally no topic in my company. Not even during breaks. Neither about men nor women, and neither attractiveness nor the lack thereof. If there's talk about absent co-workers at all, which is rare enough, it's about what they're working on, did, or said.

The usual chit-chat is about what people do on weekends, or what they find remarkable, or something like that.

I legit don't know if this is going to be an unpopular opinion or not, but this is an actual hypothesis I have on this matter.

I think women on average are more social and thus form relationships much faster and easier. I think men (whether it's due to societal pressure to be a stoic hunk of rock, or just because of genetics I don't know) are slower and we form fewer friendships, and even in those that we form we tend to avoid gossip because we all think about each other that we're going to disapprove of that. Men tend to be more gossipy when they are relaxed. Usually with best friends only. You can see that the more social men are also the more gossipy ones, presumably because they feel relaxed in a larger group of people faster.

So I'm essentially behind the idea that women are more gossipy, I think that's good though. I think gossip is a form of social trust contract. The idea that gossip is bad is the stupid part, not that women gossip more. Maybe that's just me though

@Hazarth i think that's bogus, specially since there are studies showing that men talk more than women, and women are still perceived as chatty when they talk less than their male counterparts

@Hazarth also, i wasn't talking about best friends, i see men who barely interact daily shit talking about women when they're alone

@Hazarth I can't speak for sexes in general, but for me personally, lack of trust is indeed one of the reasons why I don't do that.

The other, even more important one, is that badmouthing co-workers, in particular over non-work matters, generates a miserable working environment for everyone because it destroys the team spirit.

Added benefit: since people know that I don't do that, the one time where I did need to take someone down worked well. That was a totally incompetent middle management asshole who nearly had fired me.

@bahua ok white knight

@tosensei ok, we will send you a medalhoky hero. And gossip has social function, a form of information exchange.

@tosensei "doesn't mean drowning is, in any way, not terrible."

you make too much damn sense.

@Fast-Nop "The usual chit-chat is about what people do on weekends, or what they find remarkable, or something like that."

WholesomeNop must be posting today instead of FastNop.

@tosensei No, it isn't. Communication has more dimensions than just the content one - but it doesn't come as surprise that some devs lack the social skills to understand that.

@tosensei i guess you have your own definition of gossip being useless information only. No. You hear new guy with less experience gets more salary than you. That is gossip and useful.

@tosensei And there we are. You claim you understand that communication has more dimensions, but at the same time, you make clear that you have no idea.

@tosensei If you want a relation, you'll have to communicate on the relation level (and not primarily on the content level). It's that easy.

@tosensei As I said above, I don't think badmouthing co-workers is a good way to achieve that, and you're free to choose your acquaintences as you like in private based on mutual interests. It's just that this doesn't work in a company because that's not in the hiring criteria.

@tosensei Because social trust is a currency. That's basic social skills, and if you totally don't get how that works, I can recommend you read up e.g. on transactional analysis.

Or you leave it at the apparent lack of social skills so far down the Dunning-Kruger-hole that it's funny to watch.

@tosensei that’s why nobody invites you out and youthink you have a small core of real friends but they don’t really like you that much either.

@tosensei What, there's a wrong-way driver? Thousands of them!

@tosensei Humans as species can do a lot of things in a meciocre way. We can e.g. run, swim, climb, but nothing really well. The one trait that we have is organising in complex social packs.

That's why humanity as a whole wouldn't have made it if it had consisted mainly of people devoid of social skills.

@tosensei Walking and throwing are useless if you're alone, which is why banishment is pretty much a death sentence with indigenous people.

Also, no, termites, bees and ants are not more complex packs. They're larger, but have a lot fewer roles. Even if you look at human tribe level, the social interactions and executed plans are a lot more complex.

That is, if you even can see social interactions, which you just can't. Your social skills are that of a rock. Read up on transactional analysis or so to get a basic idea of how that shit even works.

@tosensei You obviously didn't get the point. Humans make it in packs because that kind of organisation is their major skill. Individually, humans are weak and slow.

But since you showed that your uptake on content level is just as bad as the one on social level, I see no point to discuss that any further with you. Have a nice day.

@tosensei dude, we created far more advanced civilization thanks to our intricate social skills which include gossipping and you are wiggling around to praise dumb ants which have been doing the same shit for million years.

@tosensei gossip is good to gain access to information about people about things that happen when we're not looking or about things that happened before you entered the social group. that's really, really useful. that's how women find out which guys are the creeps, for instance. that's how you find out your boss has a history of sexual harassment. that's how you know x, y and z would absolutely throw you under the bus.

people have to keep track about relationships with a ton of people and their relationships with others as well, and gossip makes that easier.