You’re hanging out with your guy and his cell phone rings. After checking the caller ID, he declines to answer it without telling you who’s calling him at such a late hour.
You’ve been suspicious of his behavior for weeks and this latest incident just adds to your growing distrust.
Are you crazy with insecurity or is your beloved really up to no good?
For some, snooping through personal belongings and enlisting friends to help verify a partner’s story would be the way to answer such weighty questions.
Snooping made easier by modern technology that holds plenty of personal information can be too big of a temptation to resist, singles said, citing plenty of examples of when they’ve snooped either intentionally or impulsively.
“I’ve spied on my boyfriend. I’ve checked his caller ID,” said Kati Killebrew, 19, of Port Neches, Texas.
Killebrew, who said she doesn’t expect to find anything incriminating when she snoops through her boyfriend’s things, insists she trusts him.
Her boyfriend has also snooped through her personal belongings, she said.
“We’re just picking on each other,” Killebrew said, shrugging off their behavior as natural curiosity.
Young singles like Killebrew said modern technology has influenced how, where and why they snoop.
Cell phones store phone numbers and log incoming and outgoing calls. Pagers and caller ID units can trace a caller’s identity.
E-mail accounts contain the time and date a message was sent.
`Little Black Book’
In the movie, “Little Black Book,” a young woman, frustrated when her new boyfriend refuses to talk about his previous relationships, snoops into his romantic past after getting hold of his Palm pilot, which contains the names and phone numbers of his ex-girlfriends.
Brittany Murphy plays Stacy Holt, a twentysomething career woman who enlists her friends’ help to pry into the past of her boyfriend, played by Ron Livingston. The movie is now playing nationwide.
Although the movie has young stars, its theme — a morality tale about snooping — and the question it raises — have you ever been tempted to go where you shouldn’t? — have no age limits.
The temptation to snoop exists at any age and at all levels of romantic experience, according to dating expert Trish McDermott, vice president of romance at match.com, an online dating service with more than 12 million members worldwide.
“Dating pushes a lot of buttons. It opens up your vulnerabilities,” McDermott said by phone from her San Francisco office.
Fill the voids
Snooping can fill the voids of a picture we’re putting together of a new partner, especially when that picture is slowly taking form, she said.
“I think women have greater tendency to want to know more. We talk openly. We reveal more about ourselves.
Generally speaking, men hold back and that can be frustrating for women,” McDermott said.
Those who are active in the dating scene said insecurity, not curiosity, is the No. 1 reason for snooping.
Insecurities can come from uncertainty about where a relationship is headed and whether a partner is sincere about such intentions.
Others might feel insecure about themselves when a partner is unwilling to answer questions about past loves, young singles said.
“You wonder, `Do you want to get back with your ex or be with me?'” said Tommie Nguyen, a single 20-year-old Port Arthur, Texas, resident.
Jhamien Broxton, 25, of Port Arthur, once had a partner go through his wallet. Broxton remained cool about the incident.
“I didn’t mention it,” he said, adding that snooping “will catch up with you.”
McDermott offers some additional advice to those tempted to snoop.
“If you have to snoop to get to know someone, then you’re probably dating the wrong person,” she said.
