"Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but it is the only answer."--Dorothy Day

11.16.2006

Close Talker.

My life is very regimented. Every Sunday without fail, I check out the New York Times Magazine to see if there are any interesting things in there (that I am sure to read about half of because those things are long), and I check the Style section on both Sunday and Thursday. In today's Style section there was an article of the study of personal space, or proxemics as it is called. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My college roommate had a big thing about personal space and we had this friend who was such a close talker that sometimes you could feel him breathing in your mouth. It was pretty disgusting,and it really freaked her out. But he was really funny and generally saying something inappropriate. I didn't used to be a big personal space person. But as I often find myself uber annoyed by people all up in my mix, I think I've been converted. Such as a good friend of mine who is about 6 inches shorter than me and a very close talker. When she speaks to be, I feel like she's sitting under my chin. And a girl, I met at a party a couple of years ago who was an actress. I kid you not, when she talked to you she stood about 2 inches from your face. I blame it on her profession, but it was still pretty terrifying. So anyway, enough of my non sequitur. Have a good weekend.

2 comments:

Little Light said...

I'm pretty big on personal space at work where I tell the VIPs that I feel like a mother who can't go to the bathroom without her kids following (and it's getting worse because they want to know where I am after hours and what I'm doing all hours of the day because somehow it's become their business).

Once, I was on a subway car that was empty except for me and another girl who sat right next to me fluffing her paper and hitting me with it. I said, "you couldn't have found another seat on this train?" and got up and moved. She just looked at me.

Generally though, it depends on the person. Some people I want in my personal space.

The Minority Report said...

ahh, the mouth breathing. ick. ick....ick.

in austrailia, they're not so concerned about the personal space. when we were in line, if we weren't basically standing crotch to butt, people would just cut in front of us unabashedly. some finnish people at the airport did it, too.