There are people that care about me, and certainly people who I’ve annoyed—often those are the same people. Is it ok that we talk about each other when we’re not together?

I like to talk about people I know. It helps me process my own thoughts. To digest interactions.

This came up in a recent New York Times opinion feature titled “The Virtues of Being Bad”. On the topic of “Gossip”:

If you’re reading this and are among our loved ones, know that your personal life is a regular topic of discussion in our house: your marriage, your divorce, your childhood, your parenthood, your transgression that one time in college. It mostly comes from a place of sincere interest and care: Loving you makes me want to tell stories about you.

This resonated with me. I talk about people I care about. Conversely, I can imagine people talk about me when I’m not around. And I like to think I’m ok with that.

They should be able to rehash our interactions outside of my hearing. To be clear: I don’t ever want to hear what they’re saying about me. That might be the worst, and those conversations are private. But when done thoughtfully, they can be an important part of healthy, involved relationships.

I often talk about a person when I have an unpleasant feeling about something they’ve said or done, and that feeling is out of line with how I want to feel about that person. Talking about it lets me express and examine my initial basic, unwanted feelings, move toward integrating the episode, and eventually crystalize the language I will use to talk to the person.

The conversations I have about other people are usually a kind of rehearsal, and the point arrives when I will tell them what I’ve been saying in their absence. To my mind, this is key. When I notice that I’ve mentioned the same point about someone in private several times, I know I need to bring it to them.

I choose to believe that how someone speaks about me—or to me—in my presence reflects their true regard for our relationship. What they say about me in my absence is none of my business. They’ll come to me once they know what they want to say.