I was just thinking about this today. That it seems like other people don’t posess a ‘personal space’ at all. I do, quite a large one. It makes walking through douglas’ busy and cramped main shopping street quite stressful. It also seems like no-one else has a sense of direction or a sense of how to move in a crowd. Some people don’t even seem to be aware that other people are there at all.
I have a low tollerance to closeness. Especially with strangers. One of my cow-orkers has a habit of standing quite close. It bugs me, especially as he’s usually standing and I’m sitting. So his private parts are disturbingly close.
I don’t mind closeness to animals, and my three nieces though. I love getting a hug from the youngest.
The weird thing is, while French people have no problem standing on top of you, if you make eye contact or, worse yet, smile at a French guy, like you would at strangers here, he thinks you’re propositioning him! It’s very disconcerting to have to remind yourself to do a NYC subway stare all the time and to never smile at anybody, and weirder yet to notice that, yeah, none of these people are smiling. I was a little creeped out by it even though I knew beforehand what to expect.
And nothing beats Italians for getting all up in your face, in my experience. I got backed around a potted plant three times by an Italian lady once - I felt rude and silly but if I hadn’t backed up it seemed like she was going to climb up me to fix a lightbulb or something!
A question for Europeans:
In the US, travel books and cultural guides often mention how personal space is different in other countries. If you travel to Latin America, for example, you’ll be briefed about how people will stand closer to you when you talk, or when you’re in a queue.
Do travel books and cultural guides in other countries mention the personal space of Americans, and how it extends a greater distance beyond our bodies than those belonging to other cultures?
Anyone know why personal space is so different between the US and other nations? I can tell you that I hear, “y’all up in my personal space” atleast 10 times a month from various people.
And I have never heard it even once in my life. I gotta ask though, if you hear it that often, why haven’t you stopped moving in so close?
One thing I’ve noticed living in Europe recently is that Europeans tend to pitch their voices so that their conversations stay between or among those they’re conversing with. Americans instinctively pitch their voices to override the conversations going on around them, which makes them stick out in Europe, since you generally don’t have to do that.
If people speak loudly, you don’t want to sit or stand too close. If they speak quietly, you automatically lean in closer.
I’m curious though, since Italians, for instance, seem to yell at each other a lot, do they still keep that close distance, or do they back up while yelling?
We actually touched on this business in the first year of my linguistics course … basically, yes, different cultures have different amounts of “personal space”, and North Americans tend to be comfortable with larger personal spaces than Europeans, especially Europeans from the Romance-language-speaking nations (and, by extension, Latin Americans, too.)
And yes, we do have the concept of “personal space” and “culture shock” on these islands, too … we may not talk about them so much, outside of linguistics or social anthropology courses, but we quite definitely have them - pretty much everyone does.
I have never been, but I imagine that in America, even in the cities, there tends to be enough space to move about without getting ‘squeeze past’ close to each other. Britain, and I expect Europe is densely populated and our cities are much older and less well designed for the sheer number of people in them, so having to squeeze past people is probably more common here.
As a person with a large personal ring of comfort I find moving about in towns very frustrating.
I disagree on both counts.
Also, why do you think people make sure they occupy completely empty seat rows or table sections before they all run out. And also will walk the entire length of a train looking for those free double seats or free table areas.
Personal Space in Britain is very much a real concept.
I don’t know. I have lived my life in mid-sized American towns, so my comfort-distance is definitely arm’s length. My experience with variations in personal space has been that it has everything to do with the size of the city the person is from, and less to do with nationality. For instance, New Yorkers drive me crazy by standing close to me, while I never felt my space being violated in Trento, Italy (population about 35K). A local transplant from Rome, however, stands extremely close–I guess he hasn’t caught on that there’s plenty of room, here.
Nahh…they’re too busy trying to explain the intricacies of American tipping 
On the subject of Italians and shouting. Yes they do rather. We were once on a conducted tour of La Scala Opera House in Milan. On stage were about a dozen stage hands " discussing " the best way to rig the scenery for that night’s performance. It sounded as though WW3 had broken out but it was probably just a normal conversation to them.
I actually do hear it quite often, but it is never directed at me. I try to keep a 5ft radius.