Besides the occasional person reaching too close to get something off a store shelf, the only people who regularly invade my personal space are small children, or guys who are attracted to me; not strangers in either case. I think the solution to your problem is to move to New England where leaving strangers alone is expected.
Level 0: Spam. Some computer somewhere is generating email addresses.
Level 1: Junk mail. They have a list of streets and addresses.
Level 2: Telemarketers. They have a phone number and can ask for you by name.
Level 3: People who put things on the windshield of my car. This is where they get my goat.
And if this person breaks my windshield wiper/mechanism? If this person scratches the paint while leaning over to put some unsolicited thing on my windshield? If this person is actually looking inside my car for convenient items to steal?
I paid for my stuff. Get the fuck away. You’re in my shit now.
If you see one of those nice folks doing the ‘canvas everyone’s car’ thing, can you follow them around removing the ads after they put them on everyone’s car?
Seriously, I’m uncertain what the OP was actually talking about. It wasn’t explained all that well.
I was at the bowling ally one time. I had arrived there early and I was waiting for the rest of my team to get there. While I was waiting, quaffing a beer; a young girl walks up to me and starts talking up a storm. (I’m going to say she was about 7 or 8)
She seemed like a nice enough girl so I chatted her back. But at the same time I had this uneasy feeling in the back of my mind. With the way the world is today us guys are so vilified when it comes to stuff like this. So as I was talking to her I started to look around for her parents. My intention was to make eye contact and politely smile to let them know I’m not some kind of freak.
Well, I looked around, didn’t see any parents. By this point I’m starting to feel really uncomfortable so I was about to make up an excuse to get away from this girl. (like I got to go outside for a minute or something like that) But before I could here comes this girls mother:
“There you are! Get away from him!” she says.
Then she grabs the girl’s arm and yanks the girl away. As she’s walking away she gives me this scowling look. I made sure to give her one back tho’ because at that point she pretty much pissed ME off. Hell, I was talking to the girl for a good 20min before Mom came around. And it’s a small bowling alley so it’s not like her daughter would have been hard to find.
My whole point of this post is it’s somewhat of a sad commentary on humanity. I say this yet I’d probably be just as protective if my kid were talking to a stranger. But, I like to think I wouldn’t be so fucking rude about it.
I think you might be mixing up two different kinds of situations. The first is where we are taught not too get to close to people who might be a danger to us. The second is where we choose to/are forced to get too close to someone to go about our day to day lives.
The homeless guy who gets in your face to beg for change gets in your face to force you to notice him and hopefully make you so uncomfortable that you will toss him some change to make him go away. The man breathing down your neck in the elevator/on the bus/wherever may be forced to be closer than he would like due to space confinements or he might not be thinking about his physical distance at all, just jamming out to his iPod or reading his paper. For their safety and to be polite to others the large majority of people do keep their distance but some people are oblivious or feel like the reasons to be in your space out weigh the reasons to leave you alone.