Observers of People

Admitting up front that we're all observers of people to some extent...heck, that's an essential element of being human, after all...what I want to address here are those who proudly take on the title as an exclusive role for themselves, as if they had some kind of gifted insight and privilege into monitoring and evaluating the actions and motivations of others.  This is true especially as they observe and comment on the behavior of people that has absolutely nothing to do with them...in other words, these busybodies make it their own business to mind the business of others.  I have another designation for this type: sideways people, for instead of focusing on their own personal agendas they concern themselves with looking sideways at others, more likely than not through a feigned enlightened filter of criticism.  Nearly thirty years ago I was in a Sunday school class at church, when the woman leading the group with her husband related an anecdote about how she once monitored in a restaurant how different men tended to briefly visually check out attractive women whenever they walked by...her rationale for this was that she was an "observer of people": hence this article's title.  I wonder, though, if she thought that bluntly eyeballing other people in public was only a role that she personally was entitled to and if she might react a bit negatively to find herself the pointed target of someone else's "observations".  Although I'm normal in that I keep myself aware of others around me in various settings during my day, I don't obsess on what they are doing and consciously avoid trying to compare myself to them or care if they are treated better than me. I'm perfectly okay with others engaging me in respectful mutual conversation...but the notion that they have any business judging me in any manner over what I'm doing when it violates no reasonable ethical or moral standards...and they themselves have absolutely no personal or professional standing in the matter...is completely unacceptable. Unfortunately, where I work I've had to deal with this sort of unwelcome interference, which I regard as tantamount to harassment, time and time again over the years.  Now if I went about my business like regrettably many of my colleagues and deliberately avoided wearing a mask and didn't practice social distancing in the middle of this deadly contagious pandemic, that would merit "sideways" scrutiny from others...but wouldn't that be a major lapse in ethical and moral behavior on my part?