Professional voyeurism

Just before leaving the office today, as I hit 'send' on my thousandth e-mail, I realised something: I have never actually met a good part of the people I exchange work e-mails with. Considering my job requires a lot of diplomacy and tact, tone is definitely of essence. When I receive an e-mail from someone who sounds like they've got their head shoved far up their arse, I try my best to sound the same; and, likewise, if you write me an e-mail being all "hey, howsitgoin'", I'll be equally chummy.
And I just happen to find that googling the shit out of my addressees and going straight to Google images to see what they look like helps me meet their expectations. And yes, I do think I knowing the colour of their hair, what they wore to an exhibition opening, who they appear with in photos, does provide precious hints on how they like to be addressed. So I do it. ALL THE TIME. And I've only realised it today.

I know looks can be deceiving, but so can words - especially considering emoticons are deemed inappropriate in professional e-mails ( :'( ). Sometimes people can sound pompous on an e-mail, but then I do my Google check, dig out some photos of them and hey, surprise, they wear pink socks! They can't be all that uppity, surely! Or sometimes when they're male and a little bit flirty, just as I'm preparing myself to flirt back, Google shows me visual evidence that they're gay (I  had imagined it all in my head.)

And sometimes it's not a matter of my being nosy, sometimes it's actually necessary. Here's an example: like some other languages, Portuguese has gender-specific nouns, but as I often reply to e-mails written by foreigners - some of which are really quite exotic, meaning I know NOTHING about where they come from) - in many occasions I have no idea whether I'm dialoguing with a man or a woman. This has once resulted in a very awkward phone conversation where I asked to speak with KJHKAJHDKJHA, whom for some reason I decided was a man, and on the other side a female voice goes 'Yes, speaking.' and I'm all like, 'oh, no, I meant KJHKAJHDKJHA'; again, female voice  goes 'Yeah, that's me.' *facepalm moment then occurs* 'Oh. OH. No w- You're a woman! For months I thought KJHKAJHDKJHA was a man, heh.', I replied, sounding like a total derp. Nevermind sounding like a derp, during that conversation I could feel my own facial expressions turning into this:

So yeah, at first I interpreted this behaviour as just another manifestation of my voyeuristic personality (don't judge me, we're all like that, it's postmodernity does to all of us, darlings), but why shouldn't I see the whole thing as a sign of wisdom? After all, I've finally embraced how rubbish my perceptions of people can be, and, as such, I now openly - and wisely, if I dare say so myself -  mistrust them.

Someone please tell me again how people LIVED before Google existed?