The Grapevine--Society's Terror

Telephone. We've all played the game before as kids--you know, the one where you sit down in a circle and whisper something entirely random in the ear of the person next to you. Usually (if your speech has been suitably garbled) by the time the whisper gets back to the head of the line it sounds nothing at all like what you started with:

"I said 'Pink elephants wear pajamas', not 'Pink cheetahs hug their mamas!'" and you laughed as if it was the funniest thing the world over. Which it is not. But we don't quarrel with a five year old's sense of humor. Hopefully they'll grow out of it.

The older I grow and the more time I spend with people, the more I realize how The Grapevine is only a huge game of Telephone. It can work in two directions.

"The direct and the...indirect. Of course the indirect would be less direct than...the direct but..."

 (Pardon the intrusion of Roman Holiday into a perfectly serious post. ;) The Grapevine--that kidney of Society, that organ that filters every little bit of Social blood--can either make you look like a dunce or a diva. There's seldom an in between. You know it's happened to you:

You mention an off-the-cuff piece of news to a friend. Something small like, "I think it would be so much to fun to have a ball sometime this fall."

Two weeks later you meet a friend of a friend of a friend who bounds up to you, clasps their hands and exclaims: "So I heard you're planning a huge dance party for November!"
You start flicking through your mental Dewey Decimal system trying to figure out how such a thing could have been planned without your knowledge. Then you realize. Someone's been your unofficial, unsolicited Officious Solicitor and now the whole world is ready for your Mega Dance Party invitation.
On the other hand, if you were to admit that you struggled in a certain relationship with a family member to another friend and that friend was to blab, give it two weeks. You'll have a sympathetic Rumor Monger hammering down your door with reams of advice as to How To Stop Hating Your Grandmother.

"My grandmother? What on earth do you mean?"
"Don't be such a sly little thing. I heard that you were having a hard time loving her--that you sometimes felt that you wanted to scream when she asked you for the eighteenth time in an hour what day of the week it was."
"First and foremost, you are incorrect and dramatic. I do not hate my grandmother. Second...it is none of your business, third, at this moment in time I come closer to feeling vindictive emotions for the girl who told you all of this than I do for my poor, world-weary grandma!"

That would be my general opinion of The Grapevine in its worst capacity. Essentially, it can easily become a whirlpool of gossip and hearsay. Messages are garbled and lost and changed and can come out to the people on the other end entirely transformed into something not even remotely resembling their original form. There is that danger, but as a Cock-Eyed Optimist, I can't be entirely dismal about The Grapevine. I've found it to be extremely useful in numerous ways when all and sundry keep their tale-bearing tongues in check. James tells us to be "quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger." It's a good piece of advice and one that would revolutionize The Grapevine and every other part of Society. :)
Prayer requests are quickly and expertly related. Needs are filled. Plans are made and finalized. It can be a hilarious, helpful and good-humored leg of Society....provided no one cuts the telephone lines and sends a wrong message.

As Society's operators, lets try to keep the Telephone a useful tool--not a clammy-tongued parasite. :)