When I was learning Spanish, I learned that different countries and cultures have different concepts of personal space.
So when I was in school as a kid, you know, we learned about your bubble. You don’t go into people’s — you don’t go to people’s bubbles. You know, whether it’s standing in line or you’re standing chatting to somebody, yeah, apparently I forget if it was the cultures we were studying — so like in Mexico, they stand closer to you? I think that was what it was, Latin American cultures they stand a little closer to you than Americans did? I can’t remember exactly.
In that case the the consequences is just awkwardness, but it occurred to me, that’s kind of — I wonder if there’s a relation, an overlap of that to what’s going on with social distancing. It’s like our concept of personal bubble has been invalidated and so we’re collectively renegotiating: what is an okay bubble?