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Sometimes it simply depends on the individual person and his or her mental state, gender, social status, and history. Psychologists have found that women have smaller comfort zones than men. People of higher social stature demand more personal space than those of lower classes. Victims of abuse usually display a need for larger amounts of personal space than other people, and demands for extensive personal space are common traits of certain psychiatric diseases, like schizophrenia. It may even be possible that damage to certain regions of the brain could result in lessened perception of personal space. A study from the California Institute of Technology, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, found that people with damage to their amygdala, an organ that processes memory and emotions, had a lessened concept of personal space. Ultimately, most of the personal-space invaders we encounter are simply people who are inept at reading social cues and don’t realize that their behavior is intrusive.

Going to Your Happy Place
Whether people are confronted with a close talker or a bus-seat buddy, experts have identified that most people react with a similar set of evasive behaviors. In public spaces, people reliably try to keep as much distance between each other as possible, and most instinctively try to keep equidistant, like birds on a telephone wire, to permit each person the maximum amount of space. Two people in an elevator will stand in opposite corners; three people in public restrooms will insist on at least a one-stall buffer between each of them. People tend to avoid eye contact in crowded public situations; this helps to avoid intimacy and results in people’s thinking of each other not as human beings, but as inanimate features of the environment—much easier to ignore. Some try to create at least an approximation of physical boundaries by opening up a newspaper or book, which creates a separation between the reader and the rest of the crowd. On a crowded subway car, this gesture is like putting up a miniature wall. It’s even common for people to put bags or purses on their lap in an unconscious move to protect themselves and their space, or to close their eyes completely to create the illusion of psychological space. Some psychologists have even theorized that the popularity of iPods is due at least in part to people’s intense and innate desire to carve out a private zone for themselves.

Maintaining personal-space boundaries is normal. It’s okay to be a little creeped out when a stranger passes up empty chairs to sit next to you. It’s okay to recoil a little when a waiter touches your arm unexpectedly. There will always be people without an understanding of the basic rules of personal space. So just relax, open up a newspaper, and start whistling a few bars of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.”

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