Hey, oh, oh, oh, come on in and take a seat on the virtual couch.

Hey everybody.

Welcome to episode 290 of the virtual couch.

I'm your host, Tony Overbay.

And this is, I've lost track of the number of takes to open this episode because I have been trying to do a role play, a little bit of acting, and trying to make it just sound so

natural. So I decided instead, I will now tell you that buckle up. Here comes a really bad

role play to get into today's episodes. I now present to you the virtual couch actor's studio,

which essentially is me trying to do a role play. But I refuse to start this one over.

Here we go. And action. Hey, so did you hear about Ted? You didn't? Oh, yeah, yeah. No, Ted got a

tattoo. Yeah, what do you think about that? What kind? No, yeah, no, that's cool, right?

Yeah, I think it's cool too. I think it was a logo of his favorite baseball team. I mean, that's cool, right? Yeah, I think it's cool, too. I think it was the logo of his

favorite baseball team. I mean, that's crazy, right? Baseball team on his arm? That's crazy, right? Oh, no,

no, I didn't realize that he was raised, raised by his grandparents. Oh, so he and his grandpa

used to go to those games a lot. Is that right? No, that makes sense. So that really must have been more about the

relationship with his grandpa. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I get it. Do you see the car he just bought, though?

Yeah, no, I know, right? Yeah, who needs something that expensive? I mean, come on. It's just

transportation. Who cares if you don't, if you don't have to hold on to the steering wheel? I love taking control of my car. Yeah, no, exactly. Ted's insane. I'm about the car thing. The tattoo thing. No, sure, I get it. I get it, right? Okay. Oh, end scene. What you just witnessed there was some incredibly bad acting and role-playing for the topic that we're talking about today, which is gossip. Because I'm guessing that most of you listening have participated in a little gossip in your day, but depending on who you're gossiping with or

to or what you are gossiping about, that is going to be an entirely different experience.

And I also guess that you have made that decision that it's okay, even if sometimes you

may learn that somebody else is gossiping, and that is bad.

So today we're going to talk a little bit about gossip as a social skill. Can it be a good

thing? And if so, when? I was reading a couple of things recently and I stumbled upon this idea

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