Better Living Through Absurdity

For an explanation of what this column is all about, go HERE for the first installment, and if you're interested the other entries are available as well. (2) (3) (4) (5)

Today's Topic: Personal Space

I've been doing a lot of thinking about personal space these past couple of weeks. You know, there's actually a system used to measure the various degrees given and required on a country to country basis. It comes as no surprise to me really, that the US is one of the most “hands-off” cultures out there. We not only want a lot of our own personal space, but we tend to give each other a wide berth as well. Or do we? I began thinking about this subject while walking down the street and having no less than 5 people barrel into me on a sidewalk wide enough for 4 people to walk side by side. Now sure, if I'd been walking in the middle of the sidewalk, it would not only be expected but deserved in my opinion. After the 5^th time, (and might I add, no one apologized for these collisions,) I halted mid-stride and looked around, taking stock of my surroundings. I was comfortably over to the right side of the walk, not so close as to be hugging the building like a paranoiac or drunk, but close enough to give a wide berth both to people passing by and anyone who might exit a building. I spoke to a doorman asking him if I looked invisible and once he said, “What?!” I thanked him and moved on, satisfied that I could in fact be seen. A bit further down the block there was a coffee shop with an outside patio and even though it was kind of cold out, I opted to sit outside, watching people go by. I wanted to know if I should take this personally.

Sound silly? Sure. It kind of was. But I find it rather ridiculous that not only do people move through life, plowing past others without any regard for their balance, possessions or general safety, they do so generally without any apology, and perhaps most importantly, in violation of the rules of personal space. Daily our bubbles are invaded. Our little spheres of self-importance, self-indulgence, safety, reason and wit, our intangible manifestations of the penguin in the cave or whatever the hell your Jungian/Freudian/Pavlovian/Kraft-Ebbingian archetype might be...they are constantly invaded. Victimized by the brutish disregard of street swaggerers, over-eager salespeople, the ever-uncomfortable close talkers, the random touchers and perhaps most annoyingly of all, those who wish to have a discussion in an incredibly noisy environment, who then press close to you and yell into your ear, violating not only the physical boundary of personal space, but the poor little hairs in your cochleas. With all of this closeness, how can it be said that we're a “hands-off” sort?!

I also shall point out, though I'd rather not have to, the younger set of folks who walk arm in arm, hand in hand, hug constantly, air-kiss, cheek-kiss, high five, shoulder grab, and generally drape themselves all over whoever happens to be available and unoccupied as it were. These are the same flocks of people-parrots who go to the bathroom “en force,” ensuring that there will be enough makeup, hairspray, bad advice, good gossip and “fat commiseration” for the maximum possible occupancy of said restroom.

So what's the deal with personal space then?

I don't think it's a physical thing, so much as a mental thing. In some countries, sure, it's the amount of closeness people are willing to accept from strangers, whether that's the double-cheek kissing so popular in France (and Canada but who's counting), to the firm handshake and stoic backbone that the British have mastered, to say nothing of the the bone-crushing hugs of the Russian and Greek nations, the bowing and soft spoken courtesy of the Asian cultures and the good-natured back-slapping and hearty arm-pumping of the Aussies. Now of course, every culture, country and city has exceptions to the standard rules, but for the most part, we learn at an early age what the generally accepted method of greeting is among “our kind” -and it's curious that we even developed this idea of personal space given that in nature, it is customary for many species to get extremely “close” to each other for scent purposes -it's a sort of identifier. And we as humans can tell a lot about another person by touching them, even if that does go against your fifth grade cooties mentality. A handshake can say a lot about confidence or nervousness, the way someone smells...well that should be self-explanatory, the feel of a body beneath a hug or shoulder embrace can say a lot about comfort -if they stiffen or kind of shrink away, it's obvious that they aren't wanting to be so familiar with you or the environment is bothering them for some reason, or conversely if they lean into you then it might be an invitation or a show of trust. It seems almost as if invading personal space is necessary if we want to figure out what a purely visual observation might not show us. Of course it does seem rather cruel to inflict your bodily presence onto someone that could be uncomfortable but how else are we supposed to learn dammit?!

So back to what I said earlier - I don't really think that “personal space” says anything about the level of closeness, physically speaking, that someone is comfortable with. I think it's referring to the level of mental intimacy that someone is comfortable with. You know that old saying “some things shouldn't be mentioned in polite society” -well, I think we've trained ourselves to believe that some types of conversation or question or concern are not appropriate with certain people. You generally wouldn't ask someone on a first date what they think about making naughty videos (I said generally) or if they'd consider having children with you, you wouldn't walk up to a stranger and ask them what they dream about or how much money they make, you wouldn't ask one parent what they dislike about the other or how many partners they had before meeting their spouse -we have certain ingrained “lines thou shalt not cross” -and barring those exceptions I mentioned earlier, we generally stick to them. I'm not even saying that those are bad questions or shouldn't be asked -but certain things carry a level of intimacy that most don't associate with any but very close friends or family -and sometimes, not even then. Consider the old break-up phrase “I need my space” -the person isn't saying that they need physical space, but rather, that they don't wish to be as close to you as they were -they want less mental intimacy, less invasiveness, less sharing of personal whatever. And yeah, that probably means they aren't going to have sex with you anymore -and I'm sure in some cases it might also mean that they do want personal space as in they want you to never touch them again upon threat of serious pain or injury. But for the most part, they mean, “I can't keep being with you in this capacity so I'm shutting some of the doors and filtering some of the content and taking the cat, the TV and that set of wine glasses your mother gave us at Christmas because you don't drink wine anyways.”

So why have we come to associate this idea of personal space in a physical sense? Well, look at the word “stand-offish.” Used to describe people who aren't necessarily warm or inviting or who tend to keep the cards close to the chest as it were, it's an interesting choice of word given that it's a physical sounding attribute for a mental sort of reserve. Now, I think that we've come to associate a lot of physical behavior or comfort with something that is really more a mental issue. And I think it all goes back to this idea of communication. For example -if you live in a big city and you take any form of public transit, chances are, you've been cheek to cheek with a stranger more times than you'd care to count. The only thing saving you from a tango was lack of music and the fact that everyone else was cheek to cheek with strangers. And yet, that's an accepted sort of daily ritual for those people. You don't get on a train during rush hour expecting it to be empty -if it were, you'd probably assume that some apocalyptic scenario had occurred and rather than being on your way to work, your next stop was DOOM. (Yes being a el rider I do think about these things, especially being underground.) We know from experience that we'll be getting up close and personal with our co-workers, people at a coffee shop or restaurant, people at bars or galleries or theaters or anything you do really that involves the public in any form or fashion. So what keeps us secure during these encounters? Well, it's kind of a two part thing, with conditions.

We tend to maintain our composure as long as strangers do not attempt to engage in conversation with us or get close to us intentionally. (The condition on this is “unless they're very attractive in which case we try to get closer and we find ourselves generally putting up with even the lamest of small talk just to keep them within close physical proximity. Conversely, the more unattractive they are to us, the further away we want them to be -and the more they press themselves upon us, the more logical and appealing homicide becomes.)

Consider all the ways that we declare our unwillingness to mingle with the general population -Ipods, cellphones, newspapers, books...well, scratch that, no one's caught dead reading in public anymore, large, dark sunglasses, menacing looks -and if those all fail you can always count on open sores, uncontrollable twitching or conversations with invisible folk to keep you safe from interaction with the masses. These are all physical signs of a mental issue -our discomfort with communication. We want to choose when and how we converse with someone, we want to be certain that we won't have to answer any personal questions (unless they're part of a drinking game,) from people that we might not know that well (but will know a lot better after a drinking game.) We don't want to feel like someone might try to hold us accountable for our actions. We don't want to talk about how we feel...we want to store it all up, letting the petty childishness fester, letting the irrational form of logic that we've come to adopt as our own keep manifesting in new and more idiotic ways, letting the suspicions about the ex who text messaged you, the time you spend at the gym, or your aunt that doesn't seem to like us no matter how much we suck up, take hold and grow to monstrous proportions -we want to hold this all inside till the time is right to unleash it upon the unsuspecting. We don't want to talk to anyone -then our righteous anger might fade, then we might actually start to feel better about ourselves, or god forbid, we might realize we were WRONG.

So -the lesson here is: The use of the term “personal space” is really a crappy metaphor for the unwillingness to communicate with strangers and to be forthcoming about any sort of personal information, to say nothing of our inability to simply say, “No thanks,” “Not interested,” “Get lost,” “If you keep bothering me I'm going to make you hurt,” or the tried and true method of walking away. All of which guarantees that despite what the creators of LOST might want us to believe, if we're ever stuck in a crisis situation, with a bunch of strangers, in a limited amount of space, no showers, no mirrors, we're undergound so no need for sunglasses, our cellphones don't work, our Ipod batteries have died, our laptops can't get a wireless signal and any reading material we might have possessed has been burned for warmth, we don't know a damn person in the group and
teamwork is going to become absolutely necessary because gee guess what, we're being hunted by: zombies/ vampires/ werewolves/ terrorists/ mists/ fog/ piranhas/ alligators/ mutants/ redneck banjo playing mutants/ snakes/dinosaurs /rabid monkeys /nuclear waste
people/ clowns/ homicidal vegetables/ feral sheep/ bats/ re-animated corpses, not to be confused with zombies/ gargantuan insects/ the others/ small creepy children/ ghosts/ demons/ serial killers/ sociopaths/ the embittered elderly/ a house/ a car/ dogs/ prom queens/ crows/ rats/ sharks/ blobs/ furry things/ large worms or invisible parasites...

Unless there's a drinking game handy, we're fucked.

Oh and as for the coffee shop observations...I learned it wasn't personal -it happened a hundred more times to dozens of people -at least I didn't end up in a mud puddle or slipping on an icy patch thanks to some cretin's inability to watch where he was going. As I was leaving, I stepped out the door carefully and was promptly slammed into by some guy who was on his cellphone and looking up at another building rather than right in front of him. He made me drop my coffee on his shoes, cursed loudly at me and called me stupid -and stood there expecting me to do something. So I did. I leaned in really close, lightly grabbing the lapels of his coat and said very softly, "I can see that you expect yelling at me to compensate for whatever corporate insecurity led you to wear very expensive leather shoes on a wet slushy day. I can tell that you expect me to apologize for the fact that you are so impolite as to run into me, spilling my coffee which I actually have to budget for and which is now wasted. But I don't apologize to scum. However, in fairness to the fact that it's my coffee on your shoes, I'll help you to clean it off." And then I did something I've never done in my life -I spit...on his shoes.

Now, not much phases Michigan Ave -but that got more than one surprised look -and a bit of applause from a homeless gentleman, which got him a dollar and a wink from me. Because at the end of the day, you can call me whatever names take your fancy, you can huff and puff and bully and bluster -but by all the saints and sinners, you spill my coffee, I will make you regret it.

Next Week's Topic: Travel -Shut up and do it