Got some nice presents for my birthday. Best, probably, were the brand-new desktop and printer I got from Nick. He’s so generous, my other half, but let’s be clear: he bought it for me only so I’d stop using his. He hates me using his. Not just because I like to eat jammy toast when I’m working, but because, though he hotly denies this, he’s worried I’ll sneak a peek at his e-mails. In fact, he need not worry. This is not because I am not a snoop. I’m a filthy little snoop. When we started going out, I couldn’t wait for him to get out of the house so I could rifle through his drawers undisturbed. No, it is because, now that I am only 48 months shy of 50, I am at last beginning to realise that snooping, seeing things that you are not supposed to see, can only ever end in tears. In other words, that old adage, “What you don’t see won’t hurt you”, is quite true.
Of course, there is nothing that beats the head rush of a good snoop, coming across something patently not meant for your eyes. And by this, I am not talking about the stream of saucy texts and e-mails Nick gets from those 101 girlfriends of his, “wondering when, when, when we can have social sex”, as one put it, or, as another one went: “Think I’ll wither up if we don’t meet soon, but can’t chat now as am naked and getting in the bath.” In a not-so-subconscious way, I think these billets-doux are actually written to be read by me, a sly acknowledgment from my female peers that I have okay taste in men. Nor am I talking about the e-mails and texts from male friends telling him what a stunningly attractive, intelligent girlfriend he has, and if it weren’t for him... Because they don’t exist.
No, what I’m talking about is stuff that really isn’t meant for your eyes. Stuff that, if it blossomed into anything (and wasn’t, like so many e-mail and text relationships, just a little cathartic diversion to relive the boredom of one’s day), could potentially change the course of one’s life. And therein lies the paradox and inherent masochism of snooping. Does one feel better knowing the awful truth? Knowing that, until now, you’ve been living a life of ignorant bliss? That your only choices are to confront and accept the consequences no matter what, or suffer in miserable silence? No, of course not. But once you’ve done it, there’s no going back. Which is why, as I said, he needn’t worry. I won’t go anywhere near his Outlook Express folder. I can’t, anyway. His password won’t work any more.