34
Bond Quickly
Several studies have revealed the very real fact that gossip acts as human glue.
If you are a man, you are probably venturing into somewhat uncharted territory here. Men don’t make the best gossipers, for various biological and evolutionary reasons. But there is much to learn from the bond that women have. This shared experience is one of the key reasons culture has evolved in a way men don’t understand.
Gossip would have you say something critical, disparaging, mean, unkind, nasty … about some other person.
Alicia and Beyonce have a meeting. Alicia’s best chance to get Beyonce to join her cause, buy her product, or do just about anything, is to share something negative about Caitlin and have that something reciprocated.
Caitlin becomes the glue in a very close bond between Alicia and Beyonce.
This is how people become magnets to one and another.
It feels wrong. I don’t like gossip. But it’s simply the most common way people bond.
If you modify gossip into a technique, the criticism doesn’t have to be all encompassing. It could be, but all it has to be is, “She can be such a bit*h … when things aren’t going just perfect between her and Darryl.”
The magnetism that is now felt between the two people is stronger than any other rapid link that can happen between two people, second only to sexual attraction. They are “friends at first sight,” or more accurately, first criticism.
Gossip that causes the revelation of a shared negative attitude generates a friendship (bond). ...
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