the fall of the invisible Berlin Wall

I’ve now been at my new job for about eight months. The office space is a combination of actual offices (with windows, doors, private space, etc.) along the entire outer wall perimeter with cubicles filling the large, central, arena-like floor space. When I first got here in the summer I was assigned to share one of the larger offices with another employee but decided there was too much ‘space pressure’ for two desks, two phones, too many conversations, and associated happenings ‘rassling about the joint. I simply grabbed a nice cubicle lcoated just between that original assignment and the office right next door to it. This next door office, if you must know, is occupied by a loud talker. She’s a loud phone talker, a loud-open-door office talker, a loud office conversation talker. The math as it seems to me comes out to about 160 days of work in a this smallish space (I’d say it’s about fifteen feet between her chair and my chair) before she finally stops me in the ‘hall’ and asks me if I can hear her in her office. Let me see? Of course I can! Do I care? Not really. But…it can sometimes be one long day of endless discussions about lord knows what. I don’t even know what her job actually entails, but I know quite a lot of less job-like information – some just trivial, some maybe not so trivial. What I want to know is this: why suddenly decide that you want to know if I (and no doubt any number of other people) can overhear your life’s conversations? I don’t believe there's any way that she's just now realized what’s going on. Throughout my working life I’ve always been very cognizant of what I’m saying out loud when I’m at work. Lots of stuff I don’t discuss at work, with anyone, so how does this situation arise with others? Especially when you think about just what kind of things are heard; from relationships and dating, to home life, grocery shopping, and myriad other stuff. My idea is that loud talker doesn’t really care, and probably quite likes the idea that bits-and-bobs of her life are out there. She must sometimes feign concern in a veiled attempt to protect sanctity. Then again, what do I know?