MYOB (Mind Your Own Business)

[countrygirl12]

I really detest it when people do that - if she talks about everyone else I figure she will talk about me too.  Just depends on who she is with - and I wonder if she thinks she is perfect and someone couldn't find plenty to say about her.  You summed it up perfectly when you said "I hate gossip".

You are right.  I have a friend and she was talking about this other person, we both know and I use to think was a friend, and how she could not stand her and she just hated to see her coming.  Then she goes shopping with her.  I was like "don't even talk to me".  But the thing is she knows I don't like the other person so when she talks to me she doesn't like her.  But I would be willing to bet when she went shopping with her she talked about me.  I am too old for drama.  I have real problems in my life and do not have time for stupid petty crap.

[paints]

Did you tell her this?  Or did you sit and listen and participate in the conversation?

Oh yeah, I told her. 
I asked her, "Why is this my business? Why are you telling me this?"
She said, "I just thought you ought to know what your neighbors are up to.."
And I told her, I don't CARE what they're "up to." It's not my business.
I told her it wasn't her business, either.
I don't think that will stop her though. She really just does not get it.

lol.  You ought to know?  Wow.  And good for you.  The only way she will get it or at least get that YOU do not want to hear it is if you cut her off and go inside every time she starts that.  Just say "I have things to do inside" and go in the house and go back outside when she leaves.  Unless it directly effects you then you are right you don't need to know.  And she may be like a former neighbor I use to have.  She would come talk to me and tell me crap about everybody in the area and say stuff about them and then go tell them "I" said the things she said to me.  And the sad part of it all is they believed her because she had lived in the neighborhood for 10 or more years.  So most of them didn't like me.  I finally found a better place to live.  Sold that house and bought a nicer one. 

I used to do that-cut her off and go back inside- but I decided I was not going to let her or her cronies run me off my own porch. 
And yes, she talks about me.  I've had people come and ask me, "Did you say/do?" whatever she was telling this week.
I've gotten to the place where I can laugh about it, which is the best way, for me, to deal with it.