Personal Space

[Iantha]

I read this article from WaPo talking about personal space and how that varies from culture to culture, and between intimate relationships, acquaintances, and strangers. I find it interesting that they named N America as being part of the low-contact cultures even though, when you look at it on the scale, it's probably in the bottom 1/3 to bottom 1/2, implying it's more similar to high contact cultures.



How do you feel about personal space, and how big (or small) is your personal bubble? I've grown up bi-cultural, one being a low-contact culture and the other a high contact culture so I find I'm pretty comfortable in most situations, no matter what the cultural values of proximity are around me.

You'll have to forgive me for the janky link. I'm URL inept and am not sure how to just link it to words in my paragraph instead of just posting the link.

[Phoebe]

Low proximity, definitely. I hate bring crammed in with lots of people. My mom is a hugger and toucher who ended up unfairly thwarted by a life spent with a non-hugger non-toucher and his similar daughter. And that's with family and friends. Strangers?! Loose acquaintances?! Whoa. I mellowed over time and so did my dad. Now we are hugging the family/friends more. I'm okay with that. My husband is a big-time toucher and hugger, like his parents. We all come from similar Midwestern/northern European cultures, however, and all of us seem to leave a lot more personal space between bodies than other cultures might. You hug and step back - you don't want to stand arm to arm with people.

I like to chat with my neighbor over the fence and a few yards of grass. I hate it when co-workers hug me. A woman I work with is always grabbing and patting/stroking my arm and likes to stand right next to you, and it violates all instincts to tolerate this. My daughter Chloe, amusingly, is like her dad and is a toucher. She walks arm in arm with her friends. She and her brother (and the dog) usually sit in some jumble/pile together. This is probably healthy for the brother, whose bad attitude comes straight from his mama.

[El Jefe]

Ideally, if you're not on a list of less than 100 names, there will always be multiple dozens of miles between us, and any contact will involve a computer screen. Sadly, few other people seem to agree with this.

[bralbovsky]

To be fair, it's only in the modern world where there's potential for a list over 100. The list of names I am expected to recall instantly grows by hundreds every year, not to mention hug at random meetings at the mall, not to mention recall where they went to college seven years ago... it's a lot of info....and germs. Urbanization, man.