thisnthatwithatwist

Did you ever feel like nobody in the world can keep a secret? It seems like the common denominator. It doesn’t matter what race, religion, sexual orientation, occupation, or fiscal status a person falls into- we all gossip. But maybe it’s not our fault.

Author Robin Dunbar equates the human need to gossip to an animalistic instinct. She explains that our evolutionary ancestors, like monkeys and apes, spend their lives in close physical contact, endless grooming each other.

“They think nothing of spending hours leafing through each other’s fur, combing, picking, parting the hairs….We are social beings, and our world- no less than that of the monkeys and apes- is cocooned in the interests and minutiae of everyday social life. They fascinate us beyond measure.” [1]

            She goes on to explain that if the reader were to listen to the conversations of others, whether it be at a bar or restaurant, or a university common room or the lounge at a multinational company; no more than a quarter of the conversation would deal with any intellectual weight. The rest, she explains, will be the socially important, “who is doing what with whom. And whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing; who is in and who is out, and why; how to deal with a difficult social situation involving a lover, child or colleague.”[2]

[1] Robin Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language, ( United States of America 1996) 4           

[2] Dunbar, 5

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