Archives December 2025

Can you keep a secret? I can’t.

With the ability to share salacious information within seconds, there is no doubt that girls are the worst culprits for idle petty gossip. What is more exciting than finding out a cheeky fact about a friend’s boyfriend or learning about an acquaintance’s secret fetish and then being able to share this delightful vocal treat with your own gossiping gang? You anticipate the eager faces, and then you can feel the pride after you become the group’s favourite – the holder of new gossip. In female friendship groups, health, beauty, and who has had what cosmetic dentistry and their teeth done and when are prevalent and very common topics, but why do girls love to gossip about other girls so much?

And is this a problem in today’s society?

From high school ages, girls are renowned for their inability to keep a secret and their delight at imparting gossip to their friends. Social media plays a key role in modern-day gossiping as information can be transferred quickly and secretly. In addition to sharing gossip online, social media sites such as X aka Twitter, Facebook and Instagram often become sources of new information to share. I know that it is very easy to find out a lot of information about someone from their online profile – even if it is very trivial facts and, quite often, fictions. These things then become twisted, changed and evolve into gossip, which is then readily shared between individuals. But why is this so interesting?

I think women are naturally nosy. In 2026, with access to other people’s lives online, it is more acceptable to be curious about friends’ interests, life choices, and relationships. Fifty years ago it was not a common thing to pry into other people’s lives as we do now and therefore it would often appear that today’s youth are more invasive when it comes to trying to gain information about other people’s lives. Viewing intimate pictures and learning about relationships from people you have only met once would probably seem strange to people over the age of 50. But really, in current times, if you have the information there to view, why not be nosy and have a look?

The problem with being able to so readily access other people’s intimate details is that ‘information’ often easily becomes salacious gossip. Details are exaggerated, and as the story is told over and over, the facts become decidedly convoluted. Like in a game of Chinese Whispers, the gossip that surfaces at the end is not reminiscent of the facts you began with. Although I love chatting with my friends and more often than not end up sharing more than I should – not just about me, but about others too – I think the culture of gossiping is becoming more and more of a prevalent issue. In a society where everything is open to all, when will privacy return?

Privacy is a big issue when it comes to gossiping about friends in 2026.

When you are sharing all their intimate details with an adoring audience, it is very difficult to think about the effects of your exciting recital. The main victims of girly gossip are people who want to keep their privacy and not have their secrets repeated to everyone within a ten-mile radius. It is very difficult to strike a good balance. When you tell someone a secret you want to be sure they keep it to themselves, but will they? This introduces the idea of not just privacy, but trust too. If we are becoming a society which shares everything, what happens to trust? More.

As information turns decidedly public, gossiping is going to just intensify. Sharing secrets is both satisfying and cruel. Having a gossip session among a few close friends is all well and good, but in 2026, it is difficult to draw an appropriate line between what is fair and what is unfair. With all your information open to all, how do you manage to keep your own secrets? Is there such a thing as a real, true secret in a society full of openness and oversharing?

Interested, get in touch!

Why is finding a pen pal these days so difficult?

The obvious answer is modern technology.

When emailing, texting, and instant messaging are available, it’s not hard to see why the practice of letter writing has declined in recent years. It’s just so, well, instant. Letters, on the other hand, take days (or more) to receive, and it takes more time to actually sit down and write someone a letter. Plus, you have to have paper, envelopes, and stamps, and worry about how many stamps you’ll need. Sometimes you’ll have to make a trip to your local post office to make sure everything is set to mail so that it doesn’t get returned to you and you’d have to start the process all over again. Read reddit.

Why even deal with that? What’s the point when you can send a text or instant message in less than a minute, free of charge? I know, I get it. But who doesn’t love receiving something in the mail? It’s just so much more special that way because you know that that person took the time to gather the supplies, go through the writing process, find the appropriate number of stamps, and be patient enough to wait for it to reach you and receive a response in return. It’s exciting and personal, and you’ll have something to look forward to every month. You’ll also have the letters to save and reread any time you want.

There are other obstacles in finding a pen pal. If you’ve never actually met the person before, there’s the initial getting-to-know-you stage where two strangers email or Skype one another until they’re comfortable that the other person is not a total psychopath who will send them a package of dead kittens.

Although usually people don’t just want to hand out their mailing address to someone they met on the internet. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you are absolutely certain that they are who they say they are and you feel safe about it.

Then there’s the dilemma of actually finding someone to write in the first place. Do you want to write a friend or family member? They may think you’re crazy for even suggesting it. “Who even writes letters anymore?” “I don’t have the time to write a letter.” “We can just email each other instead.” Hey, who knows! Maybe they’ll come around and want to give it a try. Maybe it’ll surprise them how much they enjoy writing and receiving letters!

Would you rather write to someone in another country and learn about their culture? Do you want to just write to someone you’ve never met who lives in another city? If you’re still in school, you could ask a teacher if there’s an academic club or program that arranges penpal relationships. What about that foreign exchange student who attended your school last year? Why not try writing to them and see if they’re interested? If you’re not currently in school, it may be easier to find a pen pal website that will aid you in finding like-minded people. And if that doesn’t work, you could always find someone through a social media account who might be interested. It’s somewhat ironic that modern technology might help you out in finding a pen pal after all! Just remember to take the proper online precautions. It’s better to be safe than sorry!

In the end, it’s hard to find a penpal in this day and age. Most people just aren’t interested and it’ll take some time to find someone who is willing to write to you. Don’t give up hope! There are people out there who are in the same position as you and you might just find each other. Letter writing may be old-fashioned and time consuming but I think it’s certainly worth it.

What do you think about writing letters? Let us know in the comments!