“So, I heard this rumor …”

It’s a line that can cause a person to either feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, or, if you’re like many down the Shore, make her quiver with eager anticipation.

For a long time, I was largely unaware of the vast and glorious cesspool of rumor generation that exists in certain social groups within New Jersey’s lesbian scene.  Having moved to the state just after graduating from college, I was quick to grab the one who would be my girlfriend for the next three years: a clean-cut, straight-edged girl who has an aversion to drinking and is even less of a fan of back-stabbing and slander.

Newly single at the beginning of 2009, I found myself eager to try out a new scene, one in which my ex and I were not friends with all the same people. It was then, by chance, that I began to spend copious amounts of time down the Shore.  And it was also then that I discovered a different kind of New Jersey lesbian: the rumor queen.

We all know someone like her. She’s the one who smiles sweetly at you before telling the person next to her about some godawful thing that you did that, honestly, you would never, ever consider doing. She’s the one who will see you hug someone and assume that you’re fucking them … and three of their friends at the same time. She’s the one who will insist you have an addiction problem, whether it be to drugs or alcohol or sex, in an effort to deflect the other eyes that pry into her own sordid lifestyle.

There are multiple ways of dealing with this character:

• Avoid her. So you caught wind of a few things she’s said about you that were false. Instinctively you withdraw from her presence and don’t give it another thought … until you realize that everyone else still hangs out with her, and if you want to hang out with them too, guess you’re kinda stuck.
• Give it back to her. I’m talking about starting rumors about the person who was the source of the original. This does, of course, create a circle of doom as far as rumors are concerned; that is to say, the rumors just tend to snowball until they become so far-fetched, so “out there,” that they’ve lost any of their impact.  Of course, this does gain you the reputation for being full of shit, but at least the original rumor queen gets her comeuppance, right? Right? Oh, and P to the S, you also get your fifteen minutes of fame … for being a douchecock.
• Scream, cry, or throw punches. Let’s face it: down the Shore, we’re dealing with a whole lot of Type-A personalities. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing – in fact, both my mother and my sister fall into that category – but it does mean that you’ve got a bunch of outspoken, headstrong women in a relatively small area. The general method by which these girls handle the rumor queen is simple: get in her face. Sure, you risk catching a blow to the jaw, getting banned from the bar, or having to choose friends due to strange loyalty splits, but then again, think of the entertainment you’re providing the rest of us!

And finally, my personal favorite:

• Take it as a compliment. Clearly your life is far more interesting than the rumor queen’s if she feels the need to create stories about you. Enjoy it! This summer I apparently was not only fucking five different girls at once, but I was also a cokehead. But once the rumor queens who made up such tales caught wind of the fact that, well, I just didn’t care, the stories tapered off. ‘Cos let’s face it, one of the primary attributes of a rumor queen is a short attention span. If you don’t feed off of them, they’ll move on to someone new.

If you’re new to the Jersey Shore lesbian scene, the rumor mill may seem a bit daunting at first. You’ve just gotta figure out how to handle it in a way that best suits you.