Have people ever said bad things about you behind your back?

Post Reply New Topic

If so, how did others who happened to hear the "bad news" react? Did they treat you any differently than before? Has anyone ever turned others against you?

(Had an unfortunate incident in high school when this happened. Someone spread this vicious rumor that was false. Someone claimed that I acted a certain way at a particular party that I never attended. I found out who started the rumor, and it was someone who was angry at me for some reason, who clearly had paranoid tendencies. A few of the other kids treated me differently after that, like I carried an extremely contagious disease. At other times it was more subtle.)

Sure they have. It happens to everyone and is just a normal part of human social interaction. While I do like to know what has been said, I also accept it as normal gossip on some level.

I've caught people moaning about me behind my back! It was at my old volunteer job, where I said goodbye and everything, but they didn't know that I was standing right outside the store room door, putting my buspass into my pocket, and I heard them complaining to eachother that I always leave a mess. I wish I had gone back in and said, ''oh, I'm so sorry about that...'' in an annoyed voice, but instead I walked away, not knowing whether to feel angry at myself for not tidying up after myself, or disappointed in them for noticing and complaining about me as soon as I leave.

Probably. Almost certainly. But I'm unlikely to catch on when people are doing that kind of thing, so I just don't worry about it. There's nothing I can do about it anyway--and people do naturally talk about each other, especially about weird people like me.

Of course. The worst that can happen is someone making up stuff about you and others believing it. I hear you can actually sue them for it because it's slander. In 5th grade, I had an ex friend who made up stuff about me on the school bus while I be at my doctor's appointment. Mom told me if she were an adult doing that, I could have sued her because other people believed her. Kids did believe her and they treated me different. They ignored me and this girl used to open her mouth at me. Then they apologized for believing her. That is when I would care what someone is saying about me. But if no one was believing a word he or she is saying, I wouldn't care. He or she can tell strangers all they want making up stuff and I wouldn't care if they believe them. I would never see them and they would never see me so why let it bother me?

I have also had harmless rumors spread about me too. One of them was about me being a lesbian and the other was me being pregnant and being engaged. I am not sure how those got started. I know rumors start with false assumptions, and not remembering things correctly and people love to gossip. They hear something and they go telling it to someone else. They just can't keep it to themselves. It's like the game telephone. The story changes and it's done without intent. These rumors here didn't bother me because they were harmless. Nothing changed when people heard them.

Whatever they're saying about me behind my back is probably true.

I wouldn't call the rumor that you're a lesbian or pregnant and engaged a "harmless rumor"--it would easily ward off any boys who wanted to date you. "Not malicious", maybe; but harmless... eh. Only kinda. But I guess it's water under the bridge now...

They used to call me a lesbian too, but that might have been partly accurate, though I didn't know it then. I've never fallen in love with anyone, but it's entirely possible that I might one day fall in love with another woman. I wouldn't want to have sex with her, or with any guy I fell in love with--but to have a close, emotionally intimate relationship is something that appeals to me, and I really don't care about gender. So maybe the rumor-spreaders just realized I wasn't straight, and figured it must be the opposite. Or something.

Come to think of it, it might have come from the times a bunch of the girls in my class used to surround me and insist I tell them who I had a crush on, usually listing various boys. When I constantly said "no", maybe somebody suggested I might like girls instead.

But I can't really blame them. They had no idea asexuals even existed, and rumors about who likes who are standard stock-in-trade for high-school gossips.

Yeah, been backstabbed when then don't know i was in earshot of them. Just increases my distrust of people.

Or maybe they don't realize just how acute our hearing is. We do tend to pick up more than most people.

I don't think a year's gone by without somebody making up cruel rumours about me. When I was 16 there were some particularly disturbing ones, saying that I'd made a sex tape and that I was a pornstar on the internet (among other things). Sometimes people would gossip about things that're actually true too, like the fact that I've been in a relationship with a guy who lives 4000 miles away and that my mental health isn't that great. It actually hurts more when people gossip about the stuff that's true, because they take parts of my life I'm at peace with and make it out to be this huge deal and something bad, and it re-triggers any bad feelings I had about it before. People do seem to avoid me now, but it's getting to the point where I just tell myself I shouldn't want people that judgemental in my life anyway. I wish I was brave enough to go to some of these people and say "I know you've been gossiping about me. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Ouch. Yeah, I think it's a really different thing depending on how they see it--whether they think it makes you less of a person, or whether they just see it as a bit of juicy gossip in the same vein as crushes, first dates, and who's been gazing longingly at whom from across the room. When people spread rumors that you're gay/bi/whatever behind your back, they're implying that not only do they think you're not straight (may or may not be true) but that if you aren't, that's bad and unacceptable. So it's like a double whammy. And if you are straight, then there's the problem of setting them straight without looking like a homophobe yourself. Or, worse, they don't believe you and you look like you're in denial AND a homophobe. You just can't win.

I do get some minor issues due to being asexual, mostly because nobody seems to believe that asexuality exists and/or is healthy. I've never even kissed anybody, much less had sex. It's just not my thing. And yet, multiple people don't believe me when I say I'm a virgin at age 29, and happy that way. Doctors, for the most part. I've had doctors give me condoms because they're "sure" I must be sexually active even though I say I'm not. I've been pregnancy-tested before starting various medications, because they wouldn't believe me when I said I couldn't possibly be pregnant. I've had my hormones tested multiple times (all normal) because they were sure I must be out of balance somewhere. It's just ridiculous. Occasionally, there have been guys trying to seduce me (usually clumsily) once they found out I'm asexual, because they think that they're God's gift to women and can somehow change that. Thankfully they all backed off when I got annoyed. It's nowhere near what gay and bi people get hit with, that's for sure, but it's annoying in its own way.

You know, Callista, I always figured asexuals had more difficulties in some respects, given the fairly sexualised nature of society. I mean, yeah it's true that, even in progressive societies where homosexuality and bisexuality have found acceptance, there's still going to be bigotry, but people in general seem to at least understand when you're sexually attracted to someone.

You mention here, that on at least two different occasions, you've encountered what amounts to attempts at 'curing' you simply for being asexual. That is some screwed up stuff. I've never run into anything of the sort in my own personal experience. Teasing, yeah. Name-calling, yes. But no one who ever actively set forth to 'change' me.
I should mention my mother is pretty much asexual as well, at least since shortly after I was born, so I've some familiarity with how someone who doesn't care about sex has to operate in a world where sex is pretty much advertised constantly.

Oh jeez, have they ever....and heck, my stepmother will even do this even when I'm only in the next room from where she is and she knows I can hear her.

YES!! But unfortunately, I had a habit of hearing such things because people who gossiped in college did not realize how acute my hearing ACTUALLY was. Anyway, half the time I got insults & such anyway. It was stuff about my somewhat erratic attempts at having a love life that hurt more. Alienating people I was trying to date was beyond cruel.

Sincerely,
Matthew