The Visor

Space Invaders

November 12, 2009

Ben Edwards

It’s a personal invisible force field which naturally differs from person to person, culture to culture and gender to gender. No, it’s not new space age technology; it is your personal space. Your personal space is most likely given as much thought as breathing or blinking; it’s something people naturally do. Personal space is something wired into our brains since birth.

It is easy to picture your personal space as a bubble or a force field that envelopes your body. This bubble expands and shrinks depending on cultures, genders and status of relationship. Our personal space bubble is dynamic because it changes on a case to case situation.

For example, your bubble is going to expand when talking to a stranger because you naturally want to keep a comfortable amount of space, but your bubble shrinks when talking to a close friend, family member or perhaps a romantic attraction because we are more comfortable with these types of people. Interestingly, men tend to have a larger personal space bubble than woman.

The personal space bubble changes from culture to culture as well. For example, Japanese people have a larger personal space bubble, and Italian people tend to be a more up close and personal people– kapiesh?
Paying attention to someone’s space bubble can tell you a good bit of information. For instance, when there is not room for Jesus between two people, you might conclude they are in a relationship… or if there is a larger gap between two people you could conclude they are meeting for the first time. The small details tell everything.

Now the fun part: take two people, one with the normal American personal space bubble and let the other person invade it (this is where I come in) and see what happens.

My experiment was simply to walk up to a person, strike up a everyday conversation, but take the extra step forward to invade their space and observe the reaction.

Different people have different reactions when their space is invaded, but most commonly the initial reaction was an awkward giggle followed by a step back. Playing my part as the person would step back I would step forward and this process of stepping back and forward would continue making us do a unique type of space-invaded waltz around the hallways of Hoban.

Another common trait when space was invaded was the phrase started by the most idiotic three letters put together in the English vocabulary– “uhh.” Add on the rest of the phrase, “What are you doing” and it equals “Uhh… what are you doing?” After the awkard giggles and step backs, it was always the “uhh… what are you doing?”
The last observation that was commonly done– the elbow jab. At the point where I clearly crossed that person’s line, before I knew it, their elbow was in my side jabbing at my kidney. The ultimate sign of “back off.”

I found when invading a girl’s space they seemed more comfortable than guys until a point. Usually, with girls they will not question the space invasion until you are right in their face. There’s a fine line with a woman’s personal space and if you cross it you’ll know it. With guys, it seems that the more basic instincts come out as we become immediately territorial of our personal space.

Personal space is a changing natural instinct of every person. Tweaking your bubble can be a fun and awkward way to uplift the load society can bear down on us. If you ever want to be different, make someone uncomfortable or just make an unforgettable first impression all you have to do is invade someone’s space.

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