Melissa. Well, I wonder where it went.

Or when someone tries to show you a photo on their phone.

Oh my God, Let me show you.

You can just find it and show me later. - No, it's fine. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait.

But what really bothers me is when people do not know how to gossip correctly.

Yes, you heard me.

I do believe in healthy constructive means to gossip.

Here's an example of how you don't do it.

Oh my God, she's such an uggo. Her forehead is like the size of Kansas.

Here is an example of how you do.

I think her insecurity stunts from her relationship with her mom.

Have you seen them interact?

She's really critical of Chloe's appearance and I think she's internalized that message.

So gossiping about someone behavior and the potential causes for that behavior as it means to further understand them and depersonalize actions you may have been taking personally is the only way to gossip.

Now, obviously like I'm not encouraging you to go out and start psychoanalyzing all of your friends behind their backs.

But if you do feel like you're the kind of person who talks negatively about someone's appearance, superficial qualities or circumstances without any real reflection on their rude behavior,

you're not gossiping, you are just straight up talking shit.

Gossiping without a desire to understand or expand your not about the person is just straight up venting, which is okay, fine.

I live in the real world. Sometimes you just need to vent.

And I have fallen victim to this too, you know, I could be a very petty princess.

I'm not above lashing out when I'm hurt.

Also, this can toe the line with triangulation, but the difference here is triangulation is meant to convey a message to a third party.

So I would talk to Michelle, hoping that she would talk to Melissa.

Gossiping about a third party to get clarity on why they are acting a certain way is gathering information for yourself so you can figure out how to move forward and show show up in a relationship

And I would also have you consider: if you gossip about someone enough, maybe it's time to have an open and honest conversation with them.

Yes, it can be hard, it can be harsh and hey, it could backfire in your freaking face.

But as I've called my friend group these past two years and taken off my armor to approach the very scary qualities of vulnerability and intimacy,

I've found that the people who are my people embrace these conversations even if they're hard, especially when they're hard.

You know, we don't know what we don't know and we can't fix it if we aren't aware of it.

So I am very thankful when someone respects me enough to tell me how I've hurt them because I know that's an opportunity to make it right.

Plus, if it makes you feel better about this whole thing, I talk to my therapist about this of course and this is basically what's known as a consultation group.

So therapists will actually get together and talk about the problems of their clients to each other to have additional support or ideas on how to treat issues, et cetera.

Of course, without compromising identities, but just so you know, it's therapist sanctioned.

I'm Anna Akana and thank you the patrons who supported today's video and thank you to Nord VPN for sponsoring today's episode.