Friends

The thing about friends is that you can't be too honest with them.
They just wanna have good times with you, talk about other people, and not have to worry about feeling bad/insecure about themselves.

Friends want you to indulge them. So that they can feel normal about themselves, i.e. being 'wanted' by someone as a 'friend'. And in return, they will volunteer to indulge you too. This is so that they can feel that they have contributed to the friendship in a 'fair' manner.

The last thing you should do is to point out how meaningless it is to keep talking about other people and not work on one's own problems. If your friend has not pointed out your problems to you, you should not volunteer to do so for him/her either. Because once you do that, despite all those excited gossiping sessions you've shared for years, you are not friends anymore.