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I'm sure we've all heard the phrase at some point in our lives before - when it comes to relationships in small towns, 'everybody knows everybody'. However, this isn't always a good thing - especially if there happens to be a bad apple among the bunch (or maybe even just a mentally or behaviorally challenged individual).
Anyways, I'm starting this forum to see if there have been any incidents of small town gossip that have gone so far as to take lives, cause property damage, or all in all were just plain wrong. I'm hoping that this could help me with a similar problem I've been having for the past three years, so any stories you have would be great for me.
I once got a phone call from my third cousin asking me if I had killed myself because she was told by her mom, who heard it from her neighbor; from my ex-boyfriend's step-son that I couldn't live without his step-daddy some 8 or 9 years after we had split up. Apparently the rumor had gotten around enough that that was only the first time I'd be asked that by the end of the day.
Also, I had a friend die in 2001. In 2009 I had a run in with his sister and she said to me, Is that my niece? He told her he was the father of my child when he wasn't even in the same state when I got pregnant and went to his grave with her thinking that was true.
I was a bartender for a number of years so I've either slept with everyone's husband, wife or perform black magic.
My best friend and her boyfriend were murdered by an acquaintance in 2007 over a rumor. She had supposedly called him a rat to some people who carried weight and the killer believed they were hiding dope in their house so he knocked on the door, strolled in and shot them both in the head; leaving their little girl sitting on the floor for like two days. He lives in Virginia now.
About 25 years ago I was a late night radio disc jockey at a country music station in a small town in Virginia. When I was there the station had hired a young woman then in her mid 20s to join our news staff full time. Her background was very impressive. For a time she was even an intern for ABC News. Peter Jennings, Paul Harvey, Joan Lunden..she knew them personally. Anyway about six months after she had started working with us for some unknown reason a rumor was sweeping though the town that she had spent time in a mental hospital which was totally false. It had got so bad ( the spreading of that stupid rumor ) that we actually had lost some major clients including three car dealerships and a fast food restaurant who refused to advertise on our station despite the fact that we were number one in the ratings because according to them we had employed a "crazy person". If that wasn't bad enough when the then-popular country band Confederate Railroad had showed up in town she was denied a press pass to interview them because the company who had sponsored the band's concert they too had heard the rumor. They were concerned that she would do "something" to the band I suppose. Shortly after this incident she resigned and took a job as a waitress at a truck stop for which she did for many many years. It wasn't until recently now in her mid 50s that she was able to resume her radio career by taking a part-time job at another radio station in the area doing news. Oh to the question "..why didn't she just leave town and try to get on the radio somewhere else ??". Her husband had ran his own very successful business in the area so moving out of the area wasn't possible and the other stations in town had heard the rumor as well and they wouldn't hire her.
Back in high school ( mid 80s ) a family that my cousin had known had moved to the area from Long Island. They had two sons one of whom was in my government class. Rumor was and there were a bunch of them such as the two brothers were also homosexual lovers such as the one where the two of them were rumored to had been caught playing around in the showers at a local gym ( totally false ) and another was that the family were sue happy ( another false rumor ). If the brother/gay lovers rumors weren't bad enough those who had only heard the latter were too scared to even say hello to them for fear of being sued over something. Eventually the family would had enough of this garbage and would move back to Long Island.
Just curious as to whether a quiet middle-class 60-something couple can move to the outskirts of a very small town (under 2,500 people) can have absolutely nothing said about them if they are pleasant, but keep almost entirely to themselves. (Of course, I do realize that to many people, those over 55 are practically invisible, anyway, except to their loved ones.)
It just seems to me that if someone does nothing to create any kind of gossip, that s/he would not be gossiped about. Am I wrong?
/\ Yes, people will still talk about you, especially if you keep to yourself
I live in a small town on a part time basis, and my home is the "creepy mansion", god only knows what kind of rumors are out there.
Every now and then I get wind of the rumors, I'm a mobster in the witness protection program, I inherited the place by killing my husband (I've never been married), I've died numerous times, I'm a witch, anyone that knocks on my door is snatched inside and eaten, or I'm running a meth lab or mj grow-op
The upside is nobody bothers me, no "religious" visitors, I don't need to worry about trick or treaters, and the UPS/Fedex drivers drop the package inside the gate and run LOL!
/\ Yes, people will still talk about you, especially if you keep to yourself
I live in a small town on a part time basis, and my home is the "creepy mansion", god only knows what kind of rumors are out there.
Every now and then I get wind of the rumors, I'm a mobster in the witness protection program, I inherited the place by killing my husband (I've never been married), I've died numerous times, I'm a witch, anyone that knocks on my door is snatched inside and eaten, or I'm running a meth lab or mj grow-op
The upside is nobody bothers me, no "religious" visitors, I don't need to worry about trick or treaters, and the UPS/Fedex drivers drop the package inside the gate and run LOL!
OMG -- Are you kidding me??? Where do you live? (I don't expect you to name the exact town, of course, but just the state and general location (for example, northwestern Idaho).
Just curious as to whether a quiet middle-class 60-something couple can move to the outskirts of a very small town (under 2,500 people) can have absolutely nothing said about them if they are pleasant, but keep almost entirely to themselves. (Of course, I do realize that to many people, those over 55 are practically invisible, anyway, except to their loved ones.)
It just seems to me that if someone does nothing to create any kind of gossip, that s/he would not be gossiped about. Am I wrong?
/\ Yes, people will still talk about you, especially if you keep to yourself
I live in a small town on a part time basis, and my home is the "creepy mansion", god only knows what kind of rumors are out there.
Every now and then I get wind of the rumors, I'm a mobster in the witness protection program, I inherited the place by killing my husband (I've never been married), I've died numerous times, I'm a witch, anyone that knocks on my door is snatched inside and eaten, or I'm running a meth lab or mj grow-op
The upside is nobody bothers me, no "religious" visitors, I don't need to worry about trick or treaters, and the UPS/Fedex drivers drop the package inside the gate and run LOL!
LOL! Just change the names and that is the story I'm living. Yes, half the town is delighted to see me and says life is boring when I'm not around, it is the simpler half of town that dreams up the crazy rumors.
"A mysterious, darkly beautiful woman named Cassandra Nightingale moves into an old, abandoned house which is reputed to be haunted by its original owner, "The Grey Lady". The small community is divided in their opinion of her: Some want her to stay (especially widowed police chief Jake Russell and his two children), while others want her to leave."
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LOL!
