Please Stay Outside of the Personal Space Bubble

DORLEEN: Oh, I get it. You're working me. I like that. I respond to that. Ok. You get me a date with your friend Will, and I'll give you Friday night off to embarrass yourself at that stupid little skit show.

JACK: Oh, but that's so sweet. Thank you, Dorleen.[JACK HOLDS OUT HIS ARMS TO HUG DORLEEN AND SHE JUMPS BACK]

DORLEEN: No! Don't ever come inside this place. [DORLEEN MAKES A MOTION AROUND HER BODY, DRAWING A "FORCE FIELD."]

Excerpt from Will and Grace, episode #4.05, written by Kari Lizer (excerpt and photo courtesy of durfee.net )

I have had several occaisions to invoke the Personal Space Bubble recently. I work with people on a daily basis, and even more than needing a break from physical closeness, when I am away from work I need a break from too much contact with others - period.  It can simply get to the point where it's not only draining, but overwhelming and exhausting.

Of course, one of the things I do for stress relief is go to the gym. I go to the gym at hours when there will be even less people than normal, like say, early in the morning (5:00 am) or late at night (11:00 pm). This means even less possibility of having to interact with anyone. I can get there, do my workout, and then go home.

The other night I was there late, and had just finished doing my workout with weights, and was moving on to finish up with some time on one of the ellipticals, say 30 minutes or so of cardio. There were maybe 3or 4 other people in the gym that I could see. There were at least 50 empty elliptical machines. 50! EMPTY! ELLIPTICALS!  Awesome. So I pick a machine far away from anyone else, start up the itunes, open the trashy magazine, and get to it. Not even 10 minutes go by before some person, who I do not know, comes and gets on the elliptical machine right next to me.

REALLY?????? The whole freakin' gym is EMPTY. Why oh why would this person need to work out RIGHT NEXT TO ME?  There are 50 empty machines spread out across the long floor of the main room. ARE YOU BLIND?  (I checked, and no, no she wasn't.) What the hell? I stubbornly refused to acknowledge the person's existence, and kept to my workout, fueled now by the annoyance of being slightly disturbed by someone needing to be so damn close to me for no reason. AAARRRRGHHHH!!!!!

THIS IS MY ALONE TIME. STAY OUTSIDE OF THE PERSONAL SPACE BUBBLE. PLEASE.

I don't get it. It's late, no one's around, you have THE WHOLE DAMN GYM AT YOUR DISPOSAL and you pick the machine next to me. Thank you.