Confessions Of A Gemini Private Investigator

I received such a fantastic email from a Gemini private investigator that I asked her to turn it into a how-to post.

Tired of your 9 to 5 job? Thinking there must be something more to life? I’m here to tell you that you CAN turn your passion into your career. Something-something take the leap, manifest your dreams, blah blah buy my book.

Listen, I was once like you. I would come home from work every night to spend hours scrolling through Facebook, rifling through personal photographs of people I knew – or just knew from afar – discovering the names of their pets, where they go on vacation, that kind of thing. Normal stuff.

Like you, I didn’t realize my hobby could become my career. Until one day, I was accidentally offered a job interview at a private investigations company headhunted by a private investigations company, thanks to my unemployment, ergo desperate job application spamming dedication to personal affirmations and positive manifestation.

Now, when you hear the title Private Investigator, you probably imagine some flawed-but-sexy, middle-aged man, who has razor-sharp instincts but doesn’t play by the rules. We all enjoy a lovable rogue with an upturned collar and a brooding gaze.

Personally, I imagine Batman. This is why I keep a picture of a cat wearing a Batman outfit on my desktop, just to remind me of the essential work I do each day, screen-capping people’s personal images from Facebook, and trawling through Google for mentions of their names.

But it’s the fieldwork that’s the toughest. While you’re sipping coffee and watching cat videos from your cubicle, I’m out there, most likely doing the same thing. But sometimes I’m in the library, leafing through the electoral rolls, noting down the addresses of various people I know, or just know from afar.

Naturally, personal address information can be used for purposes such as:
a) Smug satisfaction, b) The ability to whisper threateningly “I know where you live”, during a confrontation, c) Parking up outside someone’s house to enjoy a pizza, Easy Listening, and a long stalking sesh, d) Hopefully none of the above, just skip tracing, i.e. my job, which I take very seriously, you guys.

So, now you plebeians are probably asking, what makes a good Private Investigator? To which I would answer, being a Gemini. According to my sister, a fellow Gemini, I have been observed to demonstrate the following abnormalities skills:

A Beautiful Mind
Mystic’s description of the Gemini mind as kaleidoscopic is literally spot on. When describing my thought process to a psychologist, she remarked, “that sounds like psychosis”, but let’s go with Mystic’s opinion on this one, eh?

Genius
This might seem superfluous to the above, but I have Leo rising and we need to talk more about how smart I am. So smart in fact, that I open too many tabs in Google Chrome, causing it to crash. So smart that my attention span is too short to read a text message in its entirety because, ooh! Shiny things.

Pattern Recognition
Mystic wasn’t wrong about the pattern recognition thing. Recurring symbols are my life. There are no coincidences, just ask my monthly subscription to Conspiracy magazine. A few weeks ago I heard Ruby Tuesday on the radio, then realized it was TUESDAY and there was a BLOOD MOON that evening. My mind was blown. I’m still talking about it, obviously. Maybe we should play the song backward. Guys, this is a THING.

No Personal Boundaries
Some people call it nosiness. I prefer to think of it as a healthy concern. My psychologist gave me some sort of lawn analogy to describe people’s personal boundaries and how they should be respected. I stopped listening at that point, because, you know, the kaleidoscope thing, but I think we came to the conclusion that I should only go on people’s lawns at night when they can’t see me, and when people step onto my lawn I can spray them with the hose because assertiveness is healthy. Or in summary, “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine used to be yours”.

Keen Observation Skills
Do you have a tendency to forget small details like what your colleague was wearing last Thursday? Me neither. I have a photographic memory. What’s more, I have a highly attuned sense of smell. I’ve been known to diagnose people’s ailments based on their smell. Yep, that’s some Hannibal-level creepiness right there.

Google Is My B**tch

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got on that one.

I’m A Chameleon
It’s not uncommon for people who I’ve met half a dozen times to introduce themselves as though I’m a stranger. By this point not only do I remember meeting them, I remember what they were wearing, the name of their spouse, their Facebook URL, and what brand of perfume they wear. But for some reason, people forget meeting me. Perhaps it’s because I change my look almost every day. People often say to me, “I didn’t recognize you”. This is a handy trick in my industry, but otherwise quite depressing, and/or just an opportunity to mess with people.

Eavesdropping Skills

I’m a pretty good lip reader, and I have very good hearing when it comes to key words. In my office, I’m known as ‘big ears’ for my ability to just know when an interesting gossip session is occurring, so I can sneak up with my cat feet and listen in. Note – when someone has their back to you and they don’t hear you approach, it often gives them a fright. Office games are fun!

Trustworthiness
People trust me I can’t count the number of times someone has blurted their deepest, most Plutonian secrets to me. I think it’s something to do with my frank and open demeanor because next thing you know, I’m The First Person They’ve Told.

And despite all the above, slightly sociopathic ramblings, I am actually very trustworthy. In all honesty, my job does involve me finding out some very personal information about people. But that information always has a purpose and legal authorization – and it’s not shared with outside parties, no matter how amusing it is.

Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do, so please comment below with links to all your favorite cat videos.