My extreme secret nosiness

Why I'm so nosy and how I hide it.

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This week my partner Tom told me his cousin had sort of new girlfriend. They weren’t labelling it yet. It’s very early days. That he was divulging this information was very unusual and almost certainly in response to a complaint I had recently made after discovering he’d withheld a particularly juicy titbit for several weeks. I was more annoyed about this than if he’d been hiding an affair. Don’t tell me about how Newcastle United and your tennis backhand are doing. Tell me the stuff of life.

So finally I had something. Somebody who might be his cousin’s new girlfriend. I also had her first name and that she is an opera singer and the moment those facts left his mouth I picked up my phone and put them into Google.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I couldn’t believe he didn’t know. I’m obviously finding out what she looks like, where she studied, what her exes looked like, if she’s ever done a sponsored run, where she’s from etc etc etc.

“Have you not already checked all this?” I asked.

He hadn’t and seemed quite shocked. It hadn’t even occurred to him.

I just can’t understand why he’d not want to know. Why he hadn’t immediately been building a profile as detailed and complex as Fitz in Cracker would have done?

Maybe it’s not normal.

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I went through a phase of working in a café as it meant I wasn’t just in my bedroom day and night. But my extreme nosiness meant I had to stop. I was eavesdropping on every conversation, no matter how mundane. And worse than this, I’d take what snippets about them I could and then go on Google to try and find them.

I don’t know these people. They were never saying anything particularly interesting. But maybe I get the hint that perhaps one works in TV and I’m gathering everything I can to learn more. What is wrong with me? So now I’m back to working in my bedroom, where all I can hear is the sound of my own sighs. It’s so much better for me.

I’m very ashamed of this. I know being nosy is wrong. Although I like having something about me named after a body part. As I’m never going to be called leggy or brainy. Just mouthy, maybe, when I’m drunk.

I do wonder how the nose got involved in this over-inquisitiveness. It should really be eyey or eary or eyeandeary.

My big fear is that I’ll be caught out one day. I’ll know something I shouldn’t about someone that I’ve found on Google and I’ll let it slip in conversation and it will be mortifying and I’ll have to find a way to erase my identity and start over.

Which I don’t fancy so I Googled, ‘Why am I so nosy?’ If I can find out why I’m like this, perhaps I can change.

Here’s a selection of answers: low self-esteem - tick, feeling inadequate in some aspect of your life – tick, obsessed with comparing themselves to others – tick, insecure – tick.

I’m thinking now that it would be weird if I wasn’t nosy.

If I get asked by a delivery driver to take in a package for a neighbour that I don’t know very well, any guesses what I do the moment I close the front door?

Yes, I’m thrilled that I’ve now got their full name and can Google them. Last year, I had one which I couldn’t find online and it wasn’t even a common name. My first thought was – witness protection programme. I’d estimate I’ve speculated that around 50% of my neighbours are in witness protection. If I can’t find them on Google – witness protection. They keep themselves to themselves – witness protection. When their house is for sale and I go on Rightmove (obviously) to see inside and there’s not much furniture – witness protection. They’re moving after being here for less than a year – witness protection.

I wonder if my nosiness isn’t just down to being a bit bored and desperate for something to feed my imagination.

I should point out here that I’m only ever covertly nosy. I’m never prying to anyone’s face, to the extent I probably seem disinterested in them. Someone could drop an incredibly tasty fact like, “Oh, that happened when I got married to my cousin at 16”, and I’m desperate to know more. Desperate. But I can’t bear to be seen to be nosy so I let this snippet float out of reach.

And then spend the next 6 weeks doing an online investigation into it.

Enough about me, what about you?

Please make me feel better about myself by sharing examples of your own extreme and secretive nosiness in the comments.