Personal Space
The Source
I used to play a great little game with my 7th-graders. It was a unit on interpersonal relations (We called it “Getting along”) and I’d choose a student at random, ask him to close his eyes, then I’d hold up three fingers for the rest of the class to see. I would then ask the chosen student to approach me to talk about something. As soon as they walked up to me I’d say, “Stop!” and measure the distance between us. It was always the same. The student would stop three feet from where I was standing. The class was always amazed. I was a magician…a mindreader…a seer. Actually, I was just an experienced teacher. Depending upon your relationship with the person, the average Joe will stop approximately three feet from you. It’s the American Personal Space. Actually, those who’ve studied this say that the average distance is 24.5 inches, a bit over the three feet required by Jr. High students when approaching their teacher. Sometimes I’m more interested in people who study these strange things than the behavior they study. In any case, the researchers have found that this personal space varies a bit from country to country. People in India require less p.s. than ...say…a guy who runs a gas station in Outer Mongolia. Folks who live in cities are more comfortable in confined quarters than Steve Stix who lives in the high country of lower Montana. Seems reasonable. When I travel from six stop sign Arenzville to walk down Chicago’s Michigan Avenue I feel a bit pinched. Last week a company called Avioninteriors pitched a new seat to the airline industry. Their new “Skyrider” seat allows for only 23 inches between you and the seat ahead of you. It’s designed for shorter flights and you ride it like a saddle. I’m not kidding. Maybe this is an improvement. For years we’ve been treated like cattle by the airline industry and now someone’s actually made us the cowboy. I suppose this is better than the recent request by the penny-pinching Ryanair airline that asked the Aviation Authority for permission to offer standing room on short flights. Their request was denied. With the Skyrider you’d actually be standing but with a small seat under you so Ryanair…the first airline to charge for food ….is taking a long, hungry look at the saddle seat. Anyone who’s traveled in continental Europe or Asia will tell you that personal space shrinks as your plane crosses the ocean. Once, before our plane landed in Rome, I asked my students to observe the distance that Italians kept between themselves. Aside from the wild gesturing displayed by our Roman brothers, they seem to inch toward each other on each word. The typical American will consciously or unconsciously edge backward when confronted with a person whose idea of personal space is less than hours. When you see an Italian speaking to someone from Illinois it looks like an animated game of hide-and-seek with the Italian backing the American all over the plaza. I used to play another game with my former superintendent, James Brim. I’d set out the seats for the night’s play, carefully nudging the folding chairs up against one another, then he’d come through and pull them about four inches apart. He’d leave the gym and I’d sneak in to crowd the chairs up again. How close you sat at a Triopia play depended upon who’d been in the gym last. Both of us enjoyed our personal space, but I had ulterior motives: getting as many people as close to the stage as possible, and knowing the adage that a close-hemmed audience is always more responsive than folks who are spread out. I was doing comedies and I wanted to do everything to assure laughter. Close audiences laugh more. Audiences who know each other laugh more. An audience member who can see other audience members laugh more. It’s science, man. But outside the theatre, gimme my space. I need it. I’ve got to have it. I’ve never felt like I actually suffered from claustrophobia, but I can remember a terror-filled evening standing in the main square of Florence, Italy, listening to Zubin Mehta conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. They announced that a half million people were standing there with me and I was right in the middle, number 250,001. It was a free concert, the conductor was world-class, the orchestra was renowned, and all I wanted to get was out of there. Finally, after a couple of painful movements (the orchestra’s, not mine) a very large Italian man beside me decided to leave and started plowing his way out of the plaza. He was built like Schwan’s Food truck. I ducked in behind him like that little bird that sits on a hippo’s back, and rode his wake out of the concert. 24.5 inches? Sorry, but I’m a country boy. Gimme a mile.