Personal Space Bubble... Hahaha

Growing up, I often talked about people who were in my “Personal Space Bubble.” As Americans, we don’t like to be very close to people. There is always a certain “bubble” surrounding us and when someone is too close, we begin to feel very self-conscious and uncomfortable.

Well, Brazil has a very different concept of personal space. This idea of being separated from others is not a common idea at all. There are several times throughout my day that I notice this lack of personal space. While it is uncomfortable for me, it is seen as completely normal for Brazilians and I am sure that they don’t even think about it.

First is on the buses. The public transportation here is often packed, packed, packed. For example, each morning I take the Cohab/Antartica-Pinheiros bus. And each morning I know it’s going to be quite the bus ride. Everyone is going to work and to school. With rush hour, the bus is late and people have to pile on. Oftentimes, I enter and the space is so packed I have to push forward through the door and let the doors close behind me. I am literally crammed between the people and the entrance door… and if the doors were to open, I would fall out. Literally. The large public buses normally should hold 35 seated people and 38 standing people. While the seated people are always unchanging (there are only so many available seats!) there can be anywhere from 60-70 standing people. There is certainly no sense of personal space… And when someone from the bus needs to exit from the back of the bus before everyone else… Well, just let me say, it’s quite the disaster…

And talking to friends. People like to be near when they talk. I was at my university with another American friend. We were talking to a Brazilian and she kept getting closer and closer. We would take a step backward and she would take a step forward. We were slowly moving over the campus and, while both I and my other American friend felt uncomfortable, the Brazilian didn’t even notice.

While a lack of personal space normally makes me feel uncomfortable because I worry about bad breath, here it is completely normal to invade someone’s space. Each and every day I am in close contact with people who would normally keep a reasonable distance from my “personal space” in the United States. While I’m slowly accustoming to this lack of space, I do still often notice when people are “just a bit too close…”