I Prefer ‘Voyeur,’ Thank You Very Much

There’s a voice within me that, every now and then, whimpers for excitement, like a bored puppy next to a dormant, tattered tennis ball.  Not that ever-changing realities like my daily commute on public transportation aren’t exciting enough.  No, the urbanites with whom I share my 45 minutes of recycled air each day, with their opinion-slathered rantings, full-volume Seinfeldian phone calls (sans perceivable wit), and shockingly public personal disclosures, are reason enough to leave my iPod at home.  The great, though sometimes thoroughly exhausting (regardless of age, disposition, or caffeine intake), thing about city life is you’re never without some form of unavoidable entertainment.  But still, there’s something inside me that clamors for more.

It is probably for this very reason I began my casual relationship with voyeurism.  By this, I don’t mean to suggest I install secret cameras in women’s locker rooms or play cloak and dagger on arbitrary park benches while peering at “evildoers” through eye holes in a newspaper.  We’ll leave that to the peeping toms, the website “entrepreneurs” grossing $14.95 per monthly membership (ahem, so I’m told), and the crotchety old men who have no patience for dropped forks or talkative babies and, some could say, have been calling their dusty, respective domiciles “home” just a tad too long.  More accurately, I keep myself open to those private yet often all-too-public worlds adjacent to each of us, letting them in like a curious fly through an open window.  I let the exploits of neighbors, friends, and strangers alike, find me, rather than vice-versa as I become engrossed in a blend of perceivable realities and creative manifestations.

Essentially, and really just to absolve myself of all the shame of being branded as an “outcast” given that last summary, I will say all these questionable behaviors can most easily be pegged on my childhood best friend, “A.”  It was he who first harbored the endearing yet peculiar obsession with watchful vigilantes like Zorro and Batman, dutifully watching their stories every day after school less like a casual audience member and more like a zealous fan club of one.  Given my limited social circle and a lack of any perceivable quirk, I, like the ever-eager Robin (without the homoerotic undertones, of course), was apt to follow suit.  So we were to be found each afternoon, slowly losing what we had been taught that day as we excitedly absorbed the flicker and glow of each “BAM” and “THWIP.”

Inevitably, as is the case with any imaginative suburban boy whose almost professional rejection of academics turns evenings and weekends into “playtime,” watching those caped crusaders, social miscreants, and restless vigilantes quickly turned to idolizing them.  As our imaginations deepened, A and I soon found ourselves recreating their most famous exploits (complete with homemade capes and our own special blend of adolescent awkwardness).  The cherry tree in front of A’s house was no longer an expensive suburban attempt at the taming of nature but the looming gothic cathedral, atop which Batman watched as the Joker plummeted to his own death, having been bested by his own vanity (that, and a loose gargoyle).  We were seeing the world through very different lenses, and we loved every starry-eyed minute of it.

Having become lost in our creations, it was only a matter of time until A and I started believing that we were ourselves, in fact, misunderstood heroes with the taxing but unshruggable duty of keeping watch over our communities and dealing that particularly hard-to-swallow blend of non-lethal justice to those who found themselves outside the boundaries of our moral code.  So, when A suggested the heart-pounding and seemingly (at least at the time) innocent pastime of what he referred to as “spying,” how could I possibly have said no?

The rundown was simple: wait for dark, dress like what could only be perceived as tiny robbers or makeshift superheroes (depending on if our capes were clean, of course), and peer into the homes of our well-to-do neighbors to verify that they were, in fact, not deranged terrorists, plotting masterminds, or backroom crime lords.  Questionable?  Invasive?  Psychotic?  Absolutely, but these neighbors, with their staged Christmas cards, curiously dense shrubbery, and all-too-perfect façades of suburban contentment practically begged to be investigated.  At least, that’s what we told ourselves.

Eventually, though, the honeymoon phase wore off and we grew bored of passively watching our targets.  Adrenaline had become our drug of choice, and no longer did flitting from the shadows provide our much-needed fix.  What good is standing in a bush in the dark observing a stranger watch TV unless your heart is racing like a hungover prom queen awaiting the results of a small urine-soaked stick, after all?  So we devised ways of engaging our targets.  We scratched and tapped on windows and doors, rustled bushes and tree limbs, let our whispers cut through the dense nighttime air, and left evidence of our visits behind before vanishing into the shadows.  To our neighbors, all this effort probably amounted to no more than a general questioning of the mental condition of the local squirrel population.  But to us, it stood as a reminder of our kept vigils and a message to the would-be suburban evildoers: “we’re watching.”  Not to mention providing a pretty good buzz.

It wasn’t until one overly adventurous night that we first questioned our antisocial ritual.  Tailing a local geriatric as she walked her appropriately elderly dog, A and I, having recently become increasingly cocky in our stealthy abilities, found ourselves a little too close to our target.  With a crisp carpet of newly deceased autumn kindle snapping and crunching under our worn sneakers, we were anything but masters in the art of the ninja.  The woman whipped around to identify her attackers, understandably paranoid as the sun was nestled snugly somewhere in the Pacific and, judging by her terror, our town was apparently a hotbed for vampire activity.  As if all our previous adventures had been a much more enjoyable boot camp, we instinctually dove headfirst into the nearest hedge, collapsing, soiled and scraped, under a fog of our collective fear, muffled laughter, and uncertainty of what had just happened.

But the old lady wasn’t satisfied, and sounded the time-honored battlecry of the old and vulnerable: “You’d better leave me alone or I’m gonna call the cops.”  Her threat, though certainly empty and seemingly something a nefarious groundskeeper might growl while being tailed for clues by Scooby and the gang, was at first a nice rush, until we began to ponder how much jail time our actions could conceivably net.  To us, a parental tongue lashing meant we were cutely audacious, but a regular raping from an oddly possessive cell block neighbor meant we were deserving, reprehensible miscreants.  If only to save our virginal, yet now legally liable, assholes from certain doom, A and I acquiesced, albeit begrudgingly, that spying was to be deemed a thing of the past.

Soon, high school began and, hoping to avoid a career spent over a fryer, dressed as a menu item, or spent squeaking behind a cloudy trail of mop water, I buried my nose in my books and put my childhood behind me.  Having spent so much of my adolescence staying “forever young,” the transition was anything but easy.  But, sooner or later, my nights were spent in front of books instead of windowpanes and I had succeeded.  I was an academic, and no silly childhood urge was going to stand between me and my goal of not failing life.  My  attempts to shrug my questionable past continued through college, when, despite the all-but-subtle voyeuristic tendencies of my classmates, hall mates, and even friends, I reminded myself that there’s nothing endearing about a twentysomething creep obsessed with the goings-on of strangers.

It wasn’t until my mid-twenties, living the cliché of a post-collegiate bachelor in New York City (which, alongside being the uncontested nexus of the universe, is a veritable smörgåsbord for those of us so intently interested in the lives of others), that my academic cares were long behind me and I found myself free to tap into my peopled, buzzing hive of a new home.  From my very own linen closet of a bedroom, private worlds collided as I concurrently watched “Barry,” the one-working-weekend-away-from-a-midlife-crisis office drone hopelessly flirt with his office’s Portuguese cleaning lady and listened through tissue paper-thin walls as my Muscle Milk stock-holder of a neighbor and his clueless concubine of a girlfriend attempted the Guinness World Record of most public sex ever had in the privacy of one’s home.  Ho-hum coitus be damned, these two were making important strides in the area of fringe sexual studies, and their nightly ritual served simply as the publishing of their latest findings.  New York was a land of stories, and I was apt to learn every last shocking one of them, for better or worse.

The good news was I wasn’t alone, as New York seemed to be a hotbed of voyeuristic activity that, I guess, is inevitable when that many people are so intimately elbow-to-elbow.  But I honestly don’t believe widespread voyeurism was a niche, “New York thing.”  When all is said and done, we’re all voyeurs.  If nothing else, peering into the lives of others (unless your hand is down your pants) is a healthy attempt at escapism and a low-maintenance, much-needed exercise in compare-and-contrast to our own isolated realities.  It’s just how we practice it that determines whether our actions be considered innocently curious or asylum-worthy.

These days, my city has changed as has my company, but thankfully I find myself in a life blessed not only by an amazing woman as healthily engrossed in the exploits of others as I am, but an apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows to boot.  To say the least, life is good.  Of course, with the nearest visible apartment building a block and a half away, neighbors without (shock! awe!) a taste for letting their emotional spats and sexual escapades ring out into the night like a badge of honor, and a windowsill sans binoculars, Alyssa and I experience daily disappointment as we look out at our shimmering, distant view and strain to envision the scandal and private stories and intrigue we’re missing.  I guess we’ll always have public transportation.