MySpace

I love MySpace. Not the social networking sight that has fallen so far behind Facebook that I can't even remember my log in name or password. I love My Space. That would be whatever physical space happens to be occupied by my body. Would you like to know the part I love about My Space? It belongs to me and only me. No one else is allowed into My Space without my permission.

At least that was how I thought it was supposed to work. I have discovered that I was sorely mistaken with that assumption. More and more people have been approaching me and attempting to hold conversations with our faces 3" apart. I have tried to reassure them that I really can hear them just fine from 2' away but no, they insist on maintaining their tonsil inspection distance.

I usually try to politely back away from people like this or simply avoid being in a situation where we would need to talk, however, working in a restaurant is not conducive to avoiding the invasion of my personal bubble. I am capable of dealing with people brushing against me at work, it is the nature of the business and usually the bumps are not intentional. Unfortunately I have noticed lately that a growing number of my co-workers seem to think that we are close friends and that I have some sort of desire for them to come up and hug me, lay their head on my shoulder or perform some other display of affection that involves them being entirely too close to me.

Having no way to combat this without disrupting the flow of business I have been in a bit of a quandary as I attempted to come up with a solution that would provide a lasting result. You would think that my exceptionally cheerful personality (yes, this is a sarcastic statement, I know you are wondering) would have done the trick but I found that I was forced to resort to other tactics. I tried asking them politely to get away from me. I tried completely ignoring them. I even tried threatening them! (This was fairly effective on a good number of them). After several weeks of trying to politely keep people out of My Space, I inadvertently discovered the best strategy to combat the invasion of my personal bubble. All I have to do it step on them!!!

I am not a particularly small woman and I have a habit of walking rather heavily and at a high rate of speed. When I run into someone it hurts and they will still be feeling it the next morning. Once upon a time I would try to avoid running into other people in an attempt to avoid harming them. However now that I know that running into people makes them avoid walking anywhere near me I will make it a point to collide at full speed with everyone within 18" of me!

I bet that within a week I will have My Space to myself again!