The Importance of "Personal Space" as we ease the lockdown and resume economic activities

Picture this, you are seated in the office and someone comes standing behind you and starts a conversation, over you and with a colleague seated directly opposite?

I know what you are thinking, "Those days are gone" and I would strongly agree that for most people they are now so aware of their environment that will not be n issue for many.

Let's take a step back though...

Keeping your personal space is something we all cherish. We hear people talk about others "invading my personal space". In essence that happens when another person comes uncomfortably close to you.  Personal Space is a distance that we choose to keep from others depending on how we see our relationship with them. We, therefore, can't help but feel uncomfortable when we are touched or brushed, or when someone is talking so close to our face or ears or when they are following us so closely.

"Personal Space" is an invisible/unseen bubble that surrounds one person and protects them from others. The width of that bubble is normally influenced by a range of factors including trust, gender, culture, the relationship between both parties, how long they have known each other, etc 

As a child we allowed our parents to place us on their lap and hold our hands. As teenagers, we would playfully touch our friends and allow them to touch us. As adults, we hug and kiss those our partners and spouses. We therefore choose those whom we allow into this space.

When someone "invades" our personal space we get very uncomfortable and people have experienced anxiety, sweating, and in some cases even downright anger.

Many people who use public transport especially trains during rush hour have come to accept that personal space is very difficult to enforce. Pre the lockdown in the U.K. I regularly take trains into and within the city of London. On those trains especially in the early morning and evening rush hour, it is not uncommon to have people standing cheek by jowl due to overcrowding.

So why is maintaining your personal space important? Our personal space is largely an area of "protection" around us and they allow us a feeling of safety. We reserve our personal space only for those we allow in.

When others avoid invading this space, we feel valued and respected. This is an incredibly powerful and effective state of mind. We also find it painful to watch this happen to other people in these situations. Some will not bat an eye standing up for others whose personal space has been invaded.

Pre Covid-19 personal spaces are areas we protect and some are more passionate about the width of that space. Then we had the start of the pandemic and we were told by health experts to keep maintaining at least a 2-meter distance from everyone outside our immediate household

I would argue that prior to the broadening of the knowledge around the coronavirus, protecting our personal space would in many cases be just a case of wanting others to respect our boundaries and a sign of courtesy.

Now though and with what we know about this lethal virus, that subject has taken a higher level of importance. It can literarily be a matter of life and death.

So how would this affect our interaction with other people?

Normally if someone invades your personal space there are a few actions that most people would take and these include

-      Stepping away and re-establishing the distance you are comfortable with, with the assumption that they will take the hint

-      Tell them that they are uncomfortably close

-      Accept it

As we go through this lockdown, we have many areas well marked with people being advised to keep social distance, and also there are props and markings to help in that stead. Given that many of the shops currently open are mainly the large grocery stores and many businesses are shut, as states and countries move to open, keeping your personal space can be seen by some as a matter of life and death.

So, what are the realities we expect to see happening?

I have personally experienced people on queues failing to keep the 2-meter advised distancing and I have had to tell them off or taken alternative steps to ensure I keep myself safe. I expect to see more instances of this and how do people with different temperaments and with language barriers handle this invasion of their personal space?

When people start to come out of this hibernation, we expect nerves to be frayed and emotion may run high. The possibility that people will be more aggressive towards those whom they perceive as invading their space, in my view, is likely to increase.

The majority of people would be well aware enough of their environment and the heightened importance of keeping personal space. There are however many who, even now, have failed to or refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation we are in.

How do we manage that interaction when someone is not respecting the personal space of others.

The question is how far will you go to protect your personal space and those of your loved ones? Time will tell.

The stakes though now are very high.