Conversation | 03/24/2008 12:01 am

Too Close for Comfort?

With Candice Bergen, Joan Juliet Buck, Judith Martin and Julia Reed

Joan Juliet Buck

JOAN: Candice, I remember you telling me in 1980 that you absolutely did not make eye contact in the streets of New York.

CANDICE: Oh, well that was 1980, Joan. My God. Now, I’m just arms wide open to my fellow citizens. What I love about New York is — especially a few years ago — is the kind of joy of unexpected contact with people in unexpected situations, or in an exhibit or a play. How people sort of come together as total strangers

JUDITH: In Venice, where we spent a lot of time, people don’t say, “What did you do?” when you come home, they say, “Whom did you see?” Because everybody is out on the street walking, there’s no alternative, and you always run into people. It’s rather charming – unless you’re avoiding them, of course.

JULIA: The only place that I really care about my private space is on a plane or a train. Yesterday I was flying and they were moving people to the back of the plane for weight reasons, and I was all happy with my empty row. And then all these people kept coming back, and I just started looking meaner and meaner. I think that making others uncomfortable in those situations helps you achieve personal space.

JOAN: In the movie house at the mall in Santa Fe when the crunchers come in with the giant bags of popcorn and look as if they’re about to sit in front of me, I start uncontrollably sneezing and coughing. Or I will start humming very loudly. At which point my boyfriend claps his hands over my mouth.

JUDITH: What about personal space at home? Not among obnoxious people out there, but among people you love and live with — nobody sits at my desk, for instance. Or a chair that I like when I’m reading a newspaper.

JOAN: How do you manage that?

JUDITH: You make it known. There’s a term … don’t ask me how I happen to know this, but in bullfighting … there’s a bullfighting term, Querencia, where a bull comes into a totally empty ring — it looks identical in every spot. He picks a spot and defends that spot. And a good bullfighter knows that the bull’s going to be fiercer in defending this particular spot. And why this spot? Nobody knows. Why do I want that chair and not the other chair?

89 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

I’m in my first LOFT and it takes some getting use to.I can be SEEN anywhere ..except the toilet. Must do something about the bedroom door..can be seen reading in bed and don’t like that either!

By Charles Dance on 03/24/2008 8:50 am

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I agree with Candice, my daughters are welcome to my stuff. I actually am flattered that they want to wear my stuff. I just like that it is returned. I am pretty ok with sharing my space,but growing up w/ 4 siblings probably prepared me for that.

By Dawn Miller on 03/24/2008 8:50 am

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My space is the couch I like to have my own pillow the rest anybody can have, also my purse NOBODY goes into my purse, not even my husband.

By CAROLINE MuLVEY on 03/24/2008 9:11 am

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My husband and I live full-time in a motor home and travel around the country for our business. Needless to say, there is not much private space. Mine is my “office,” which consists of my desk and chair which fit perfectly into one of the slide-outs. My husband never looks on my desk or sits in my chair. I even have a piece of crewel work that I did a long time ago for my old office that says “my room” (even though now it’s not really a room). His private space is the 24 foot trailer that we tow with his work truck, work bench and equipment inside, which has taken the place of his garage. It’s an interesting adventure.

By Rachel B on 04/24/2008 7:03 pm

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Hey, what fun!

By Jenny Oops on 04/27/2008 5:00 am

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It’s hard for me to share my space, I’m a private person, even being married if I feel my husband is looking around my desk for things I’m over his shoulder asking him what are you looking for. I don’t know if this stends back to when I was a child with 4 siblings, were I had to share my room with my sister, or my brothers coming in my room going through things. My mother would go through our stuff snooping, more so mine than any other sibling. My daughter is a little snoop also, she has taken clothing with out asking. Or she’ll grab some nail polish and start using it in front of me then ask if she can use it. I take it away from her, suppose she’ll just have 1 finger polished. If you want some thing from me ask, if the answer is no then it’s no. When my kids come to visit for a weekend or even a day, I’ll take my private stuff and hide it so they can’t see what I’m doing. Privacy is something we all ask for and it’s up to a friend, loved ones, to respect your wish and obey the rule you have in your house, or car.

By Mouse Mcm on 03/24/2008 9:16 am

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I’m married to a nosy man. Early on, he opened a card sent to me on my birthday; I blew a fuse and he’s been very cautious from then on about opening anything with my name on it, even it if is sent to both of us. When I get a phone call, he always asks who is calling, as if he is my personal secretary. He reads everything I print off the computer. These things drive me crazy, but then I get concerned about whether I’m being too finicky. How can he be wrong about everything, I wonder, and then wonder if I am just too anal! He’s a good man with a few faults that I can live with, but I wonder if I’m not just dumping all these things in my “gunnysack of grievances” to be used down the road somewhere.

By maris pym on 03/24/2008 9:42 am

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Asking who’s calling: maybe. But I don’t think you’re being too finiky or anal for being annoyed at his reading what you print off the computer. That would drive me crazy, too!

By L V on 03/24/2008 10:24 am

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Probably!

By Jenny Oops on 04/27/2008 4:59 am

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I’m famous among my friends & family for really wanting my personal space. When I received word that my father had died, a close friend offered to meet me on the way home and follow me there so that she could take me to the airport. When we reached our meeting point, she asked first if she could hug me. My kids are the only ones who can (and do) invade my space without asking first - good thing too, because two of the four can still fit on my lap. However, I won’t get on an elevator with more than three people on it. I know several people who are “close talkers”, who appear to need to stand within dancing distance of me when talking; I invariably find myself shifting backwards until my back hits a wall, and I’m then trapped, at which point I need to find an escape route. I think a lot of it stems from two occasions on which I was molested as a child, although my father always said I wasn’t thrilled about being held even as a baby. My husband, though, even after 17 years, has not gotten the point that I absolutely abhor being “snuck up on” - he persists in stealth attacks to grope me when I’m washing dishes. Luckily for him, I only use my elbows to educate him instead of the giant cleaver I might be washing when it happens!

By Wendy Dardine on 03/24/2008 9:46 am

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I feel sad for you wendy. Some of my most pleasant memories are of embracing my wife from behind, and always seeing her smile. Why don’t you try it once, even if you don’t feel like it.

By albert miller on 01/30/2009 2:09 am

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As a (corporate) trainer now instructing in the so-called “blended learning” environment where computers are used in the training room, some folks are so taken aback by someone just reaching over to use their keyboard to show them how to do something that I find I’ve pretty much lost that trainee for a good chunk of the remaining lesson. It’s usually my assistant(s) who are the keyboard grabbing culprits, and they’re astonished when called on it. But the trainees bristle if they aren’t verbally just walked through the steps (instead of having it done for them), and they’ll tell me later it was the act, not that they had to be shown that got them to object. I definitely see it as a “space” thing.

By L V on 03/24/2008 10:21 am

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I’m just like that. I recently learned how to do taxes. During my first month, I was constantly asking for help and happy to get it. But when my office leader would come over and grab the mouse out of my hand, it took everything I had not to smack her. It was the beginning of the end for our relationship. I think its rude to grab something from someone else without first asking pemission. “May I take the keyboard/mouse for a moment to show you what I mean?” is all it takes.

By LaRue Stanley on 03/24/2008 3:44 pm

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ABSOLUTELY!

By Jenny Oops on 04/27/2008 5:15 am

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I dunno that it’s a ‘space’ thing. Everyone that I have elicited to help me set up, fix, etc. my computer. Each of them seems to know a lot about computers that I don’t, which, of course, is why I asked them for help. BUT, instead of teaching me what they are doing and why so I can fix it myself later, they have all danced around the computer, fingers flying as if they were a magician. My computer got fixed for the time being, but I never learn a thing. Also seems hard to explain to these, otherwise sweet and lovely, folks that I WANT TO LEARN. Just sitting there watching them macinate does nothing for my education. GRRRRRRRR!

By Jenny Oops on 04/27/2008 5:12 am