"Did you know that David is now going out with his ex-girlfriend's sister and mother at the same time!!!!"

One of the reasons why I am so awkward in social functions and settings is the inability to gossip. I just cannot gossip with people. I find talking about nonsensical matters boring and tedious.

To ensure I was writing about the correct subject, I looked the word up in a dictionary. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, 'gossip' is defined as "a rumour or report of an intimate nature." Gossip usually entails talking about somebody that is of no concern of you, such as a distant work colleague or a celebrity, and is of an event or subject which has no relevance towards you or your daily life. It just feels good to talk about it because the subject matter is scandalous, the subject matter is fascinating as most people's lives are boring and the event usually entails the demise of a particular person or people.

In essence gossip performs no function in human society. People interject comments of matters that are of no concern of them and because gossip is based around rumours, erroneous facts and hearsay, the 'opinions' expressed by people are irrelevant. Gossip is used by people to fill the air because they hate the awkwardness of silence and the gossipers are too boring in the first place to offer something interest in their own mundane lives to talk about it.

It doesn't mean I am not interested in the lives of the people around me. Of course I want to hear if one of my friends is getting engaged or is getting a new job. Of course I do want to hear if one of my friends has just broken up or has been sacked. What I won't do is bask in their misery and talk about things behind their backs.

One of the most irrelevant pieces of gossip on the face of the planet is celebrities' private lives. I DO want to know which films actors are going to act in. What I don't need to know is with whom they are having sex with, the circumstances of their death if it is 'suspicious' or what they do in their private lives. In general it has no relevance to their performances of the silver screen. I don't care if you worship Satan in your spare time. As long as it is not illegal and harm others you can practise whatever weird religion for all I care. Thanks to the great interest of celebrities' private lives by the public, the public are in essence fuelling their demise by buying the tabloids and downloading celebrity gossip. Thanks to the insatiable appetite of the public for celebrity gossip, media outlets and the paparazzi are being encouraged to push the boundaries of privacy even further. Quite literally the public are driving some celebrities to the brink of insanity.

If people used the time to talk about gossip to talk about something else, something more constructive such as how to help the environment, end world poverty or even discuss which films will win the Oscars this year (at least that uses more than two brain cells), think of how much further the human race will be.

P.S. You would have noticed I did not make any particular references or examples in my blog entry. I feel by doing so I would fuel the reader's curiosity to find articles or pictures regarding the matter and further perpetuating the problem.