Not social enough to engage in gossip?
To preface, I want to establish that I (17F) do not enjoy gossip. Having had some bad experiences after being caught gossiping in 5th grade, I learnt that it really earns you nothing (not even satisfaction), and that I tend to go too far when talking behind someone's back, even though I never am the one initiating gossip.
So I've basically avoided gossiping despite my friends wanting to engage in it, which worked out fine, but after meeting my set of friends in high school, it has become impossible to avoid it.
I've learnt to either just pretend that I understand what they're complaining about, or just be in their presence but not necessarily engage in gossip. I've also always found it kinda a waste of energy talking about weirdos doing weirdo shit because to me, I've always thought, isn't it only a surprise to a certain point?! Like after seeing what some not-very-people do, it's not really a surprise afterwards.
Anyway another, more real reason why I feel that this is a problem for me is because my group of friends are very social, and because of this they encounter what they would call "gossip material" in daily interactions. I, on the other hand, only talk to them and maybe some other classmates (rarely). So whilst my friends complain about the select few people they talk to in class/their friends, since I'm not in these classes with those people, I don't really have much to contribute to the conversation. It's also me feeling like I don't really have a right to shit talk those people because I've never given them a fair shot by interacting with them.
This wouldn't really bother me if the only consequence of this was just me not being able to gossip about those people too, but because I always stay quiet when my friends gossip, I feel that they don't really want to talk to me, or I appear too "soft" and innocent for them.
But honestly, isn't it weirder to talk about someone doing something absolutely predictable 24/7? The worst part is that my friends look like angels on the surface, and are reasonable most of the time, so it's not like they're terrible people. What should one do in this situation...
(sorry if my writing is very incoherent)