Don't Stand So Close to Me-

You know that song by the British rock band, the Police?  Don't stand, don't stand so.  Don't stand so close to me.

Well, I find myself suddenly bursting into this melody in various crowd situations here in the U.K. and the rest of Europe.

"Why?," you say.  It's their sense of social space; it's just so much smaller and more condensed than ours is in the states.  And, it's funny, because you wouldn't think such a thing would be that big of a deal, right?  In fact, some of you are probably reading this thinking, "Yeah, yeah, yeah...  sure, Europeans are more comfortable walking around like sardines in a can.  So what?"

Well, let me just give you a recent example.  The above photo is a picture of me, as I attempted last week to make my way across the garden to the Dining Hall.  To be fair, it did end well, as a couple of really athletic students lifted me and another professor up so they could body-pass us across a few hundred students to the front of the line, simply because they like me so much and think professors should get their meals first.  In fact, as I passed over, I had quite a lovely chat with several people who were holding hands and singing "kumbaya my lord."

For the luv of whatever your god, stop standing so close to me....

Personal Space Deconstructed

Here is a typical walk in provincial Europe, particularly here in northern England:

1.  To begin, you've got single lane roads and pathways, which are treated as if there is plenty enough room for cars and pedestrians and wildlife.

2. Next, you've got garden-walls and town-corners and hedgerows everywhere, just high enough so that even me, a six foot American, cannot see over them.

3. Then, you've got these Brits, who thoroughly enjoy walking into each other.  They're like heat-seeking missiles: you do all you can to evade them, but it is to no avail---t minus 3 seconds to target---then, bam! suddenly a mob of college girls slam into you, looking at you like its your fault.

4.  And, don't forget the cars, all driving on the wrong side of the road, taking any angle possible to come as close to you, the pedestrian, as possible.  In fact, it's so dangerous crossing streets here that they have taken to writing on the sidewalks LOOK LEFT or LOOK RIGHT.  And, let us not forget the advice of the nice young Brit at the car rental place, "If it looks like they are going to hit you, stop!  Because they will."

5.  Now, add to all of this an amazingly close sense of personal space and you've got a recipe for disaster for someone, like me, who is paranoid enough to be begin with.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the issue
 
Body contact and personal space in the United States shows considerable similarities to that in northern and central European regions, such as Germany, the Benelux, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. The main difference is, however, that Americans like to keep more open space in between themselves and their conversation partners (roughly 4 feet (1.2 m) compared to 2 to 3 feet (0.6–0.9 m) in Europe). Greeting rituals tend to be the same in these regions and in the United States, consisting of minimal body contact which often is confined to a simple handshake.

My Atlas Needs to Shrugged

I have to say, though, something significant is lost in the states, with our protected public sense of boundaries--particularly amongst professional and upper-class Americans, with our big lawns, lonely parking lots, drive-to-get-there culture, and our private sense of enjoying ourselves.

To me the loss is simple enough to summarize: we struggle to have and share fun in public and to have nothing to do but have fun.

In the states, the only time people have fun together in public is at a formal event--with a clear sense of when something begins and ends.  We consider someone really hip if their invitation to a party says something like, "7:00pm until whenever!"

"Really, do you think they mean that?,"  I often find myself thinking, "Should we take them up on it?  Well, probably not, because, after a few drinks one of us has to got to drive the rest of us home."  No fun.

It makes me think of Gogol Bordello, a largely eastern European, gypsy punk band from the lower east side of NYC in the States.  They have this song called American Wedding--click here to listen to it, as it absolutely rocks!  The lyrics go like this:

Have you ever been to American wedding?
Where is the vodka, where's marinated herring?
Where is the supply that gonna last three days?
Where is the band that like Fanfare.
Gonna keep it goin' 24 hours


In the song they go on about how all the proper couples need to be getting home and how the whole thing just winds down.  The lead singer is lost; he cannot understand why.  Then he realizes, in the end:


I understand the cultures
Of a different kind
But here word celebration
Just doesn't come to mind

Bottom line: The Brits and much of Europe are much, much better at having fun together in public: sitting around; having a few beers on the train; families picnicking and kids running around all over the place; all well ordered albeit highly nonlinear to the American eye; everyone laughing and talking and walking into each other and just having fun.


Here, for example, is a video and some pictures of people having an absolute blast in Dusseldorf.  It is a Sunday afternoon, not a single department or specialty store is open in the down-town--which, mind you, is lined with the top fashion stores one finds throughout the world--and yet the whole place is filled with people, for no good reason, eating and drinking and laughing and walking into each other like very, very happy sardines--check out, for example, the massive amount of wonderful meat I ate.



It is a hard pill for me, as a professional class, mid-western American, to swallow....



But,... I know what I am going to do when I get back to the states.

Yes, I know exactly what I am going to do.

I am going to start walking into everyone, and, when they get mad, which I know they will, I will start singing at the top of my lungs:

Where is the vodka, where's marinated herring?
Where is the supply that gonna last three days?
Where is the band that like Fanfare.
Gonna keep it goin' 24 hours....