The Soapbox: Rants and Commentary: Don't Stand So... Don't Stand So Close To Me Composed by Mike O'Leary (oleary@pegasus.montclair.edu) As everyone knows, the art of conservation is lost. It's become a race to see if you can say what you want to say before your opponent (also known as the guy you're talking to) can say what he wants to say. Listening costs extra. But now I wish to present an even more sinister deterioration of conversation skills: the violation of personal space. When I'm having a friendly conversation with someone I try to keep a respectable arm's-length distance between my face and my friend's face. It's certainly not so hard to speak at a volume in which my voice could reach his, plus it allows for a comfortable feeling of not knowing what my friend had for lunch. Unfortunately, some people do not feel the way my friends and I do. They insist on coming so close that my entire range of vision is this person's head, much like that old Sinead O'Connor video. I work at the front desk at the dormitory of a university. My job is to accept identification cards of the people that enter the building. I am often spacially assaulted by those that either arch their backs forward to get in my face and say "Hello." or those that place their faces directly above what I am reading/drawing to find out what I'm reading/drawing. Rude! One final point about personal space does not even concern conversation. I play for an intramural basketball team. Recently, I attempted to box out a very large man to prevent him from getting the rebound. He knocked me down, but after the play he pulled me back and _patted me on the ass_ to basically say "Sorry about that, man." I know professional sports players have been doing it for years, and I know the guy meant nothing by it; but can a guy, without political correctness decreeing me "Homophobic", say that is wrong for another guy to touch my ass? Is this really too much to ask? To me, each of us has an invisible box around us. Encroaching on another person's box is rude and should be avoided. Otherwise, I'm going to have to start eating more salsa Doritos to keep people back. Back To Rants and Commentary

This document was created using FlexED