Wanna hear the latest buzz? Listen up—sharing scuttlebutt with your partner can actually strengthen your relationship.
When two people first get together, they live in an almost perpetual state of tangled limbs and sloppy sex. The first few months as a couple are a marathon of raw animal humping, and life is good. Eventually, though, the sheen of new romance starts to dull, and the couple shifts to alternative ways to get each other off.
Some look to deep conversations about saving the world from political ruin. Others sit around, cocktails in hand, recounting the day’s petty dramas, at least until they both get drunk enough to feel horny again. The strongest pairs, however, apparently bond over the lechery of others—no, not by participating in an orgy, but by sitting together and talking shit about everyone they know and love.
A new study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships shows that couples who gossip together end up happier in their relationship. Sure, Eleanor Roosevelt once dismissed gossip as the pastime of “small minds,” but researchers now say that spreading chatter about others might actually help couples stay more closely aligned, preventing them from the need to get some strange. “Negatively gossiping with one’s romantic partner…could signal that the couple’s bond is stronger,” the study authors wrote.
