When I was younger, my mother used to say that she should have named me Gladys.

She was referring to Mrs. Kravitz, the inquisitive neighbor from the late-1960s sitcom “Bewitched,” who was forever peering through her curtains to catch Samantha Stephens, a housewife with enchanted powers, in the act of twitching her nose and casting spells across the street.

I guess you could say I’ve always been the observant type.

Back when people were still going to restaurants, I could tell you every single voice inflection that punctuated the conversations taking place at all the tables surrounding the one where I was sitting. I passed the gene along to my children, too. We’re excellent at people watching.

Sure, we simultaneously ignore each other, but we already know everything we need to know about everyone who lives in this house, thank you very much.

I fancy myself a student of human psychology. I pay attention to facial expressions and fashion choices and word selection and what people like and how they interact with others and how they behave when they let their guards down.

Which is all a generous way of saying: I’m nosy. Like really, really nosy. Not a busybody exactly, because I don’t like to gossip (too much). But I’m super nosy.

So, imagine how it feels for people like me to suddenly have all the curtains pulled back on the people reporting from home on television and in virtual conference rooms.

Are you following Room Rater on Twitter? The account evaluates the Skype and Zoom backgrounds of all of the pundits doing remote interviews from the confines of their own kitchens. And dens. And home offices. And music rooms. And libraries.

Who knew so many people had bona fide libraries in their houses?

Suddenly I’m in nosy person overload. I can’t really keep looking at all these backgrounds. Don’t get me wrong—they’re lovely. And they reveal a lot about the people I have come to know and love through my television screen or in professional settings.

But something about this is just too much. And it kind of makes me feel bad.

Because it’s one more thing for me to evaluate myself against.

I don’t have a library. Or a den. Or a music room. Or a sit-in kitchen. Which is fine. My Zoom background is a six-foot square of my dining room that is one of the only six-foot squares in my entire house that is even remotely ready for primetime. As junk piles up on the table behind me, I just tilt my camera higher and higher so it’s out of view.

The trouble is, I still know it’s there.

Staring at me. Challenging me to do something about it.

I’m aware that this has been an issue for kids who finished out their elementary, high school, and college coursework remotely this year. But it’s likely an issue for adults too.

For 10 years, while my kids were little, I had my own consulting firm. There was no Zoom then. There were only telephone calls during which my meeting mates might have assumed that I was quieting my children by placing a giant bowl of Halloween candy on the kitchen floor before locking myself in the basement to work as they attacked the sweets like a pack of wild dogs.

But they couldn’t say for certain that was happening because the video evidence did not exist.

Working from home is hard, whether you have kids or not, and whether your kids are in a Pack ‘N Play or they’re away in college.

When you go into an office, you get to compartmentalize your work life from your home life to a large extent. When I was here writing stories until 4 a.m. and interviewing people during naptime, friends used to tell me all the time that I was lucky because I could stay in my pajamas all day.

But as the coronavirus has taught people everywhere, waking up to an alarm and getting up and having a solid routine can be a very good thing.

Otherwise, you feel disconnected from the world and all the trappings of navigating a grown-up life.

There’s a definite drawback to feeling like you’re so strapped to your computer that you can’t even spare five minutes to throw on a pair of pants. Or wear one of the cute sundresses that is hanging forlornly in your closet. And don’t even get me started about all those adorable high heels that are gathering dust.

When everything in your life feels so out of control, catching a glimpse into other people’s put-together homes just makes you feel worse.

Of course, a lot of what they’re projecting into the universe could be the same kind of illusion I’m trying to create over here in West Park (which is completely undone, by the way, when the Uber Eats driver arrives at the door. Or when I go and do something dumb like write a column that gives away all my secrets).

If I were Gladys Kravitz, I could invite Samantha Stephens over to do an incantation and get this house into some kind of Room Rater shape.

Or I could just take my computer outside and sit under a tree and pull down my face mask to smile at my neighbors and ask them how they’re handling this whole pandemic.

Yes. That would be nice. And we’ll all be in the beautiful sunshine, enjoying each other’s company. I won’t even try to picture the insides of their houses.

But I might be paying attention to their shoes.

I’m gonna need something to talk about with my kids when I go back in.