personal space, please.

I don't get it. I used to think personal space was a universal, human thing. We all had our "bubble" about arms length around us where others did not tread unless invited. Those close to us could get a bit closer, like whisper close, and then the real close was reserved for very special few. Later, as I spent part of my life in lines in the SF Bay Area it seemed that my space was getting crowded more often. Mostly it seemed to be little asian women that didn't speak english. Given that they were new to America, I decided personal space was an American or European thing and adjusted myself to try to not get too irritable. Maybe it isn't a human thing, maybe it's a cultural thing. You can't be upset with someone if they don't know. Still freaked out and feel imposed upon yes, but that's my thing not theirs.

This theory has eroded over time. I now have no idea where I ever got the idea we were entitled to personal space because any time I'm in public someone invades it. Clearly I was mistaken, I could have SWORN I heard about it in school but I must have imagined it. Yesterday I was nearly speechless. I couldn't say what I wanted to say but I did manage to choke out "excuse me" in my state of disbelief. I was standing in line to order lunch, leaving the required space in front of me so as not to crowd the person ahead of me in line, when I felt someone brushing up against my back. I shifted a little but did not move forward because that would 1. crowd the person in front of me and 2. take up my own breathing room in front. Then I feel someone actually step up in place behind me, front against my back, as though to whisper in my ear from behind - "whisper close" but I had not brought a friend with me to lunch. After I pulled myself together and verified they weren't going to shift back out of position I turned my head, because that was all I could turn without being intimate, and said "excuse me?!"(there is no way to accurately convey my tone with simple punctuation) and the grey haired woman said "oh I'm sorry" like she didn't even realize she had nearly morphed in to my place in line.

I am still trying to figure out if I am over sensitive, they have no boundaries what so ever, or I am actually invisible and it has nothing to do with personal space. There is evidence to support that theory as well but that would be another time and another story...