When a friend request pings into your Facebook inbox it’s usually greeted with positive emotions. Even if you aren’t especially friendly with the person, you’re flattered to be sent a request. The exception to this is when the request is from the last person on the planet you would consider a friend.

This is the situation I found myself in.

The request was from a girl I was in school with who was the school’s equivalent of the town gossip.

All those years ago she had circulated more than just some gossip about me. Rather it was a serious lie that spread like wildfire, and for years afterward I’d felt humiliated by it. I’d never confronted her about it but even now, some twenty years later, I was still wondering what had motivated her.

As I kept getting reminder emails about her ‘friend request’ I thought maybe this was my moment to find out.

What I know now, which I didn’t know when I was a teenager, is that truly confident and secure people don’t need to gossip. They don’t need to take from someone else’s reputation to feel better about their own lives. They don’t need to use gossip as a way to connect and bond with people.

Sometimes it’s difficult to define what gossip is but perhaps the easiest barometer is to ask yourself would you feel comfortable sharing the same information if the person you’re talking about was standing right in front of you?

I guess we’re all guilty of gossiping in some form. I shamefully wolf down celebrity gossip; however there are more than a few good reasons why we’d all be better off curbing gossip:

Gossip is the lowest form of communication. It is what people talk about when they feel insignificant because gossip feeds their egos and makes the gossiper momentarily feel somewhat superior to the person they’re talking about.

Gossip is always negative. If you spread it, start it or listen to gossip it will always have the same effect of hurting others, diluting confidences and it will never propel you forward. Rather it will mark you out as someone not to be trusted.

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Imagine for one moment that what you’re hearing about someone is being said about you, how would it make you feel? What would you say to defend yourself?

What does repeating gossip accomplish? The answer is ‘nothing’, except potentially hurting someone and damaging their reputation.

Remember the purpose of gossip is always the same. It’s to single out an individual, set them apart and indicate that they don’t belong to certain group, which is bullying by another name.

Gossip reflects worst of all on the gossiper. Talking about someone who isn’t there to defend themselves shines the greatest spotlight not on the person you’re talking about but on your own flawed character.

It’s easier to gossip than to stand up for someone, but the latter feels a lot better in the long run. Refuse to be an audience for gossip, cut the gossiper short, and simply refrain from repeating it.

I accepted the gossip’s friend request. I intended to write her one hell of an e-mail, damn, I might even post it on her Facebook Wall! Then I glanced through her Facebook. I looked at her pictures. I looked at her friends. I read her many, many updates. It was obvious how lonely and empty her life was.

I realised I didn’t need to write that e-mail. Karma had already taken care of her.