I never understood the desire to gossip about people unless it’s about complete strangers who will never appear again.

Everyone in my family is constantly engaged in gossip that’s often slanderous about other family members. “Why would anyone date [cousin]? She’s fat! He’s probably trying to get a citizenship.” Then they’ll turn around and smile and pretend to be friendly during parties. It’s disgusting.

I have a cousin who I don’t like, but I don’t talk about it with anybody. He’s changed his appearance drastically and my brother one day just starts talking to me while I’m trying to study. “Hey you talked to [cousin] lately? He’s fat huh?” I reply with “heh, yeah” and go back to studying. Then he keeps going on about how he’s fat or weird looking. I guess this is their idea of bonding lol.

All in all, i don’t ask them about their lives or tell them anything about mine unless they keep asking. And even then I’ll keep information about my life to a minimum. Several times I’ve overheard them talking shit about me because I’m quietly sitting in the other room and they think I’m somewhere else lol. Then when they realize I was there the whole time they’ll just try to laugh it off and say something like “oh we’re so bad! We keep talking bad about you!”