Part of acting casual comes from your body language. Don’t stand up too tall but hunch over just enough to look relaxed, don’t fidget too much, and keep your eyes looking ahead instead of looking down at the floor. If you come off as too nervous, people will instantly notice you. Don’t act like you’re loitering around, looking up and down, or searching for something. This will make it pretty obvious what you’re there for. Just act cool, like you’re taking your time waiting for someone, enjoying a spring day, or just wrapped up in your own thoughts. If the person you’re spying on sees you, act like it’s no big deal. Say hi or just nod and smile if you don’t know the person. If you run off or look jittery, that will definitely clue the person in on the fact that something is up.
If you’re at home spying on a parent or sibling, come up with an idea for why you’re in that closet, at the edge of that doorway, or creeping up in the same room as the person. Maybe you’re crouched down on the floor because you’ve lost an earring (bonus points if you’re wearing just one earring), or because you’re searching for something else. Maybe you’re in the basement because you’re folding your laundry. Find a reason for whatever it is you’re doing and why you’re there. If you’re out in public spying on someone, just come up with a reason for being in the same place. If the person catches you spying on him at Macy’s, mention that you’re there to pick up a Mother’s Day gift for your mom. If you’re caught spying at the movies, produce two tickets and say you’re waiting for a friend who never showed up. The more normal and boring your excuse is, the better.
Beyond the shoes, you also have to practice not making a lot of sound when you walk. Tread lightly, walking on your toes, trying to make as little noise as possible.
Harriet the Spy Nancy Drew The Hardy Boys Any James Bond films The Bourne Trilogy Alias Rear Window Disturbia
It’s important to know your strengths and weaknesses as a spy, and to adjust your first mission accordingly based on what you learned from your practice session.
It’s important to not only look like everyone else around you, but to do what everyone else is doing. If you’re in a bookstore, act like you’re searching for a book or engrossed in one. If you’re at an ice cream shop, you’ll look out of place if you’re not enjoying or buying your own cone of ice cream. If you’re spying from home, then wear what you normally wear so your family members or neighbors don’t suspect that something is different about you. If you can minimize the sound your clothes make, that would be helpful, but beyond that, don’t mix it up too much.
Write down the date and time, and jot down everything the person is doing. To make the notebook look uninteresting, write “MATH” or the name of another school subject on it in big letters. Who would want to open that? Disguise your handwriting as much as you can. If someone finds your notebook, you want to make sure they can’t trace it back to you. Write in tiny letters if you normally write with large letters, make your writing slanted in a different direction, dot your i’s if you don’t normally do that, and so on. [2] X Research source Don’t refer to the person you’re spying on by their real name. Use a code name. You can carry a small pocket-sized pad if you think it’ll make you look too obvious.
Having a partner can help you up your game because the person can pose as a door-to-door salesman, lost citizen, or another random person who can get the person’s attention while you continue your sleuthing. Having a partner can also increase the chances of spying on a whole gang of certain people.
If you hear the person approaching, just casually walk up the stairs to cross their path with an idea of what you’re setting out to do. It’s better to do this than to have the person see you scurrying down the stairs.
Don’t do something completely out of the ordinary that you would never normally do —like suddenly doing the dishes when you haven’t done them for months —or that can arouse even more suspicion.
Though this may not always work, if you always putter around the house with your headphones in, laughing to yourself, and looking like you’re in your own world, people will get into the habit of thinking that you’re not really there, and they may inadvertently say something around you because they think you’re not listening. You should still have some music playing, such as classical music or jazz, just in case you’re caught out. Just play it at a low volume.
If the phone rings for your mom or sibling and you want to stay on the line, then pick it up first, yell for the person to get it, and once they do, place the phone down and pick it back up, so it looks like you’ve put down the receiver. It’s particularly important to avoid breathing heavily when you spy over the phone. You can even hold the phone close to your ear but a bit away from your mouth to minimize suspicion.
You should also work on learning to hold a sneeze or to suppress a cough. You don’t want your allergies to give you away, either.
Putting on a fake elaborate beard or dressing in all black in the middle of the summer, for example, will only make you stand out more.
Though the most important thing is to keep an eye on your target, you should also be aware of your surroundings. You’ll blow your cover if you bump into someone, knock something over, or trip.
When a person says vowels, their mouth will make a “round-mouthed” shape. When a person says the “th” sound, the tongue will come out of their mouth and their lips will be rounded. You can try sounding out the word in your own mouth to get a better sense of what might have been said. Once you get better at looking at the mouth and lips, you can start to look at the rest of the mouth and face for context. Until you become a master at lip reading, you can even try to videotape a person’s conversation (if you can see their face) and then play it back later for yourself as you try to decipher what the person was saying.
Though you may see lots of films of people using binoculars while crouching in a bush, in reality, this will get you caught pretty fast. If you really want to use binoculars to spy on people outside, then you should make sure you have lots of distance from the person you’re spying on.
If you’re going to make it look like you’re just grooming yourself, you can’t do this forever. If you do it for too long, you may call too much attention to yourself.
If you’re using a traditional recording device with a tape, just remember that it will eventually run out of tape and will make a tell-tale sound when it does so. Use it to record for only a short period of time.
