People love to hear and spread rumors and stories. They bring excitement and entertainment often at the expense of someone else. Well, unless it happens to you, of course. Then it isn’t entertaining and exciting, it’s usually stressful depending on the severity of the rumor.
Most people just say to brush off rumors because they aren’t true. However, sometimes in life, we just can’t do that. Rumors tend to ruin an image, especially for women, and will follow them the rest of their lives. In school, you probably heard rumors about girls from everyone they knew: best friends, enemies, and even their significant others. To combat rumors, I proposed this idea: Be honest.
Being honest about stories and rumors upfront is much better than letting someone find out about them after they have died out. I was in a relationship with a habitual liar and it wasn’t fun at all. Every person we knew heard a different rumor about me because of them. It was very stressful because it gave people false impressions of me and to rub salt on my wounds, I found out almost a year after our relationship ended. This only made my anger stronger because it took a substantial amount of time to discover that he had given everyone different ideas about me.
I hate that I wasted a lot of time on something that could have been avoided. If only someone would have told me about the rumors earlier. You certainly don’t want to be in that situation nor do you want anyone you know to experience it.
So if you know someone who has been spreading rumors about someone else, or you have been spreading them yourself, do your best to to promote honesty before they waste any time. If you are scared about the repercussions afterwards, then write them the message and give evidence that this is true. Words hurt, even though we are taught as children that they do not. So, remember, to combat rumors, the best idea is to be honest.