RVingAndMore.com

Living in an RV park for a couple of months, you get a lesson on human nature everyday. With the nomadic lifestyle of many people who own an RV, you might think things would be a little different than your local neighborhood, it's really not.

Back in Ohio, we live in a small town for maybe 3500 people, one of those towns where you know everybody and it seems like everybody knows your business as well.

The longer you stay in one place on the road, the more familiar you get with people and them with you. Pretty soon, you start to hear the familiar words "did you hear about the people down in lot 52?" At this point, I begin to cringe as we have been pulled into the realm of the campground gossip circle. The gossip circle seems to apply to folks who spend more than a month in any one place. The longer you stay, the more susceptible you become to either being pulled into the circle, or being made a target of it

I suppose that if you stay totally by yourself and isolate yourself from any human contact outside of your RV, you are playing it safe. Unfortunately, my wife and I are social people and we do enjoy interacting with other folks from around the country.

The gossip circle seems to apply to men and women equally, although in my experience, the women seem to enjoy divulging these "facts" about other campers more than men do. However, recent events seem to have gone against the grain and the leader of this latest gossip circle was a male, and probably the worst of the lot I have ever met.

We met this gentleman last year at a campground in Texas who worked for the campground as a campworker. He seemed harmless enough, friendly and inquisitive about where we came from and what we do for a living and the usual things people talk about when they first meet. I really didn't think much about it, but as time went on, he seemed to know everything about everybody in the entire RV Park. When we went back to Ohio for the summer, we kept in contact with this fellow by e-mail and when we returned to Texas in January, sure enough, he was at the same campground we had decided to stay the winter at.

We met again shortly after we arrived at the campground and sat around talking for a bit, when the campground gossip issue raised its ugly head and he started filling us in on all the bad things going on in everyone's life in the park. His campworker duties seemed to have slipped by the wayside and he was more concerned with spreading rumors and gossip throughout the campground than doing his assigned tasks.

I didn't give it much further thought, but we saw this individual daily and as the gossip was his main focus in life, his campworker duties slid further and further down the chain of importance until they were not done at all. Fortunately, the manager of the park was noticing these problems and finally relieved this person of their assigned job and a few weeks later, asked him to leave permanently. This person was not done yet as he tried to convince other people to leave the park and move elsewhere, but obviously they felt the gossiping was out of control and no-one followed him on his way out. I have to admire this park manager because living in a RV park, you are with many different people and personalities and trying to keep everyone happy is a monumental task at times, but she does an excellent job and is trying hard.

Why am I relaying this story? Simply to remind fellow Rvers that people are people whether they live in a RV or a permanent home and no one likes to be the point of untrue gossip and rumors. Treat other people with the same respect that you expect them to have for you and enjoy your travels.