Everyone should get their own square

Many years ago, I took a trip to Disney World. During this trip, I was plagued by the ridiculous rushed clamor of perfect strangers who apparently wanted desperately to get wherever they were going: to Cinderella’s Castle, to Splash Mountain, to Epcot Center, just to the front of the line, or one step closer anyway. I was profoundly disturbed by the complete lack of personal space I was afforded by strangers. It seemed that I was surrounded by weird people at every turn. People with no personal space boundaries. All I wanted was the same personal space as the average guy. How much space is that? I thought it would be good to know. So I looked it up.

According to Edward T. Hall, an American anthropologist and researcher, most “normal” people have a kind of standard of personal space that surrounds them. And by “normal,” I mean people without autism or injuries to the amygdala or other physical or social anomalies. I appreciate him for pointing this out, although I wonder if my boundaries are slightly outside what he labels as usual for us Americans.

Hall decided that our most personal or “intimate” space extends from our physical bodies to about eighteen inches out from us. If you can’t easily imagine how far that is, I will tell you because I measured it. Eighteen inches is easily within arm’s reach for me and I have arms to scale the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Basically, I would consider eighteen inches very, very intimate indeed. I would not want anyone in that space, in my personal invisible bubble, unless I explicitly invited them.

Imagine an old-fashioned target and that you are standing right at bull’s-eye. According to Hall, the first little circle surrounding the bull’s-eye (you) would be considered intimate space. The next concentric ring extends to about 4 feet out and is called personal space. He calls the next circle social space and it extends to 12 feet and the final larger circle reaches about 25 feet and is called public space.

In my opinion, strangers belong in public space and public space only and thus should be a minimum of 12 feet away from me at all times. This however is much harder said than done and I have made peace with the fact that when I am at the grocery store or the pharmacy or hospital or school or in any average consumer or professional situation, strangers will likely invade my personal space without malicious intent.

Most personal interactions and business transactions admittedly require an exchange of some sort and so it does make sense that the people involved be within 4 feet of one another. I get that. So when a stranger in these situations is within 4 feet of me, I don’t panic. I don’t complain to them. I don’t like it mind you, but I expect it to happen. I deal with it and move on.

However, when there is a perfect stranger standing within my personal space or worse my intimate space and we have no plans to interact in any way, that’s just too damn close. It’s not necessary. And I don’t like it one bit.

So as you might imagine, Disney World was thick with strangers, dense with bubble-bursting people I had never seen nor heard of and had no business with. And I could not get away from them, no matter how I tried. Standing in line all day, I could feel the breath of strangers on my hair. I could feel their shoulders against mine or their backpacks or purses or even fanny packs pushing up against me. Had they no bounds? Clearly they did not. At first I would just inch away from them, hoping they would get it. But every time I moved away, they inched in closer to me. I tried making eye contact to see if I could push them back with my eyes. Not surprisingly, that didn’t work.

Finally at the end of a long day, my (now, ex-) husband and I stood in front of some particularly pushy line-goer who shoved himself right up against me. I tried multiple times to escape. I moved up, but he in turn moved up. I moved left and scooted closer to my husband but he filled the gap. I moved to the right and he closed in behind me until I couldn’t take it any more. Exasperated, I shouted “Everyone should get their own square!”

By “square,” I meant the lovely cobblestones we were standing on. I’m guessing they were about 24 inches squared and were thus perfectly sized to accommodate my special requirements. The stranger of course looked at me like I was crazy and backed away slightly, although I’m sure he had no idea what I was actually talking about.

In the end, my outburst did not get me what I wanted. Any temporary personal space that opened up was soon filled in by other space-greedy line-goers. But my husband and I got a really good laugh out of it. Yes, I had the presence of mind to realize that my demand was absurd. And between my husband and me, “Everybody should get their own square” became a kind of mantra to mean that I was feeling claustrophobic, or that I was not being tended to properly by the strangers around me, or that the outer world was simply not meeting my requirements. It became a funny way for me to remind myself (or perhaps more often for my husband to remind me) that the demands I made upon the world, the things that I considered basic human societal “norms” were sometimes, possibly not the norm at all.

It turns out that sometimes when we think we’re surrounded by weird people at every turn, it’s a good idea to consider the possibility that the weird people around you might agree with one another. It turns out that my personal space boundaries really are different than the average guy’s. It turns out that I’m the weird one. What do you know? I want MORE personal space than the average guy wants. Doesn’t make it any easier. But it’s good to know.