The right (and wrong) way to gossip with your neighbors

Dishing with your neighbors is a time-honored tradition. Here’s how to do it without getting messy.

When Gaby Lieberman moved in with her boyfriend Elvin Pavlenko, she didn’t think she’d be so closely scrutinized by their neighbors. But from the start, she was fighting an uphill battle: Pavlenko spent his entire life on the same block in Teaneck, New Jersey; when he moved out of his childhood home, he landed…across the street, in an apartment complex where he and Lieberman lived. In other words, the neighbors had watched him grow up. “These people knew him, knew his whole story,” Lieberman tells Vox. “They had seen him in diapers all the way to a grown 30-year-old man.” And the community was protective of Pavlenko and suspicious of outsiders.

So when Pavlenko’s former schoolmate spotted Lieberman reaching into an unfamiliar car to give a man who decidedly was not Pavlenko a hug and a kiss, alarm bells went off. The neighbor, who had a reputation for being gossipy, flagged Pavlenko down in the laundromat to spill the tea. Over dinner a few days later, Pavlenko confronted Lieberman: This guy I know saw you kissing an older man with a beard. Are you cheating on me? “And I was like, what? You mean my dad?” she says.

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Neighbor relationships have the potential to be either fruitful or fraught. They sit at a unique intersection of intimacy and distance: You may be geographically close to them, but they aren’t owed the same sort of emotional vulnerability as family or friends. The couple next door or the folks down the street might carry institutional knowledge of the building or neighborhood; they can help you out in a pinch and can be a pleasant source of social interaction. They can also be a little nosy, standoffish to newcomers, and, at worst, harbor biases, upping the chances for years of awkward or contentious run-ins.

It’s well established that gossip facilitates social connection and swapping stories with a neighbor can be super beneficial in spurring collective action in your community. That’s because gossip helps you make sense of the social world, according to Francesca Giardini, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Groningen. The people living around you can help you determine the cultural norms and expectations of the neighborhood.

This exchange of information can be helpful when you’re new to the community and want to get the lay of the land, but there’s a line between useful intel and harmful judgments. The secret to effective gossip, experts say, is to be fully aware of the consequences and to know when to stop.

Clarify your goals for the conversation

Because you likely don’t have a prior relationship with the people you live around, and therefore no shared history, interests, or social circle to draw from, the content of your initial conversations will likely center on specific topics, like recommendations (Do you have a Chinese takeout spot you like?), safety (How do you deal with stolen packages?), and community norms (Can I park there?). But that can........

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