{"id":93451,"date":"2016-01-13T13:04:36","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T18:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=93451"},"modified":"2016-01-13T13:16:38","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T18:16:38","slug":"the-ballad-of-the-gossip-hangover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/13\/the-ballad-of-the-gossip-hangover\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ballad of the Gossip Hangover"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Toledo Street Scandal<\/i>, 1895.<\/p><\/div>\n

A few weeks ago, I woke up one day feeling awful. I inventoried my symptoms. I didn\u2019t seem to be getting sick. I hadn\u2019t had too much to drink. Was it food poisoning? No\u2014the slight ache in my stomach wasn\u2019t, exactly, physical. And then it all came crashing back over me, and I realized the truth: I had a gossip hangover.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I remembered my own avid interest in hearing petty bits of news; my snide encouragement; the tidbits I\u2019d contributed, the brief high that had given way to a crushing shame. Like any old-fashioned alcohol-induced hangover, the gossip variety includes a large measure of self-disgust.\u00a0Why didn\u2019t I stop?<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>you think.\u00a0Why didn\u2019t I walk away or change the subject or even object?\u00a0<\/em>The version of myself I saw in those replays was so far from who I wanted to be as to be unrecognizable.<\/p>\n

I thought of my grandmother: endlessly kind, completely without malice. I thought how I had let her down. I wondered if the effects were irreversible, if I was becoming corroded beyond help. (All this happened as I lay in bed, by the way, wallowing in self-loathing.) There\u2019s no conscience transplant, that I know of, or even a dedicated twelve-step program. (Well, maybe psychoanalysis.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

But maybe a sort of cleanse, a diet of kindness and nourishing people, could be a start. I would read my grandmother\u2019s journals; I would keep away from petty company and think only positive thoughts; I would avoid the society of crummy people and strive not to be one. I would do it, I thought, throwing off the bedclothes and leaping up. Only to find I had moved too quickly, and that my head was swimming.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, I woke up one day feeling awful. I inventoried my symptoms. I didn\u2019t seem to be getting sick. I hadn\u2019t had too much to drink. Was it food poisoning? No\u2014the slight ache in my stomach wasn\u2019t, exactly, physical. And then it all came crashing back over me, and I realized the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[12511,2523,8226,6453,18573,1098,16786],"class_list":["post-93451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-city-life","tag-conscience","tag-family","tag-gossip","tag-hangovers","tag-scandal","tag-socializing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Your Conscience Has a Headache: The Gossip Hangover<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on the day-after-dish symptoms.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/13\/the-ballad-of-the-gossip-hangover\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Ballad of the Gossip Hangover by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 13, 2016 \u2013 A few weeks ago, I woke up one day feeling awful. 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