Personal Space Invaders

Dear Personal Space,

Why are you so defensively weak? You encapsulate me utterly to a radius from my body of approximately 50cm. You are invisible and weightless and for the most part, odourless, which is preferable, I suppose, to a constant plexiglass bubble around me at all times, however, when you are penetrated by something that I do not wish to have close to my person, I desperately wish that you were made of plexiglass, nay, lead, in order that I may feel even slightly protected by your presence. But no, much like a piece of candy being protected by a baby, I am far too easily taken.

Let’s explore the myriad ways your barrier can be breached. Firstly, there is the physical breach. This can happen anywhere at any time as long as there is someone else around me. Notably on a bus or train, where you shrink down to a perceived radius of zero and it becomes socially acceptable to not only brush up against a stranger but to sleep, drooling on their shoulder, occasionally nuzzling into their hair. Of course my issue here is that none of that is socially acceptable. This sort of breach also occurs in other places. I have known many the undesirable person who feels that their face should be positioned 10cm from my own when speaking to me. And these people invariably suffer from terrible halitosis which you, Personal Space, are also incapable of shielding me from. And what about the ‘passive’ smoke that you allow to infiltrate my very lungs as it drifts in from a passing by smoker? How do you ‘defend’ yourself against that accusation? My money is on you not defending yourself well at all.

Perhaps the most offensive of your weaknesses is against sound. As a human, I am already cursed with uncloseable ears, meaning I must be subjected to every noise around me lest I jam tiny speakers into my ear holes and blast very loud Britney Spears to drown it out. But you see, fighting fire with fire never ends well and before you know it, I will be suffering from tinnitis and possibly (hopefully) partial deafness, all because you are not soundproof! Among other things that my ears are incapable of doing (potentially deserving a well-worded letter of complaint themselves) is turning the volume down a notch. You therefore, are responsible for this and guess what, yet again, you fail miserably. When I am confronted with a well-meaning but ignorant person who believes that they are talking at a normal volume but WHO IS ACTUALLY SHOUTRAPING MY EARDRUMS I am once again, defenceless. And those people are often the very same people who are 10cm from my face. It’s all just icing on a bitter, bitter cake, isn’t it, Personal Space?

My suggestion to you is to toughen up. I require the ability to close myself off immediately from these everyday offences that I am confronted with. You should be capable of deflecting the worst close-talker and outside-voice-user without a moment’s hesitation and until you do, my faith in you is sadly nonexistent. Further to this, I shall be using this gauntlet, not to whip you into shape, but to attempt some actual defence in the wake of your absolute failure. Poor show, Personal Space, poor show.

Adrik