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From: crp@stcvax.UUCP (Charlie Price)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: The Other Side of the Fence: A Comment
Message-ID: <220@stcvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Jan-84 22:54:25 EST
Article-I.D.: stcvax.220
Posted: Wed Jan  4 22:54:25 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jan-84 02:32:47 EST
References: <374@abnjh.UUCP>
Organization: Storage Technology Corp.  Louisville, CO
Lines: 79

> I walked away on a cloud!  I didn't care if she had just given me a line as a
> brush off or not, I felt great!  WHY?
> Because she had emphasized her sincerity
> with a touch and it made all the difference in the world how I felt.

Touching is quite important!

Long ago enough that I can't remember the reference (perhaps Science News),
I read a short report of a study concerning touching.
I believe the main scenario was one in which some sales people who handled
money (change) were instructed to try to (or try not to) touch the
customers' hand slightly when giving them change.

Many people who had been touched didn't notice it, or at least
weren't able to remember it even a moment later.
Despite this, the customers that had been touched had a more positive
attitude toward the business where the experiment was taking place
and, more surprisingly, had a generally better frame of mind
than the group that had been not touched.

The details may be a bit different than my failing memory supplies,
but I'm sure that the result was much as I remember it.
As far as the experimentors were able to determine the minor,
and oft unremarked, personal contact had a perceptible effect on the
state of mind of the contactees.

My theory about the reason for this is that touching is perceived as
perceived as a friendly gesture; someone is friendly enough to
allow you into their personal space and even to impinge yours.
A touch can be an agressively friendly gesture; it communicates
at a level below the abstractions of language.

I found this very interesting and, as a toucher myself, I thought
it somehow added validity to the way I would rather be.
I have tried to notice this effect myself.
My observations on the original question are inconclusive, but
because I was paying attention to it I discovered an aspect of
relating to other people that I hadn't noticed before;
negotiation of personal space.

I, myself, am a toucher and like a bit of physical contact with the
people around me; other people, sometimes spectacularly, do not.
Some people see this as a sexually related behavior but I think that
is a myopic view of personal interaction.
Sure sexuality influences the WAY in which I make physical contact
with people around me.  Something sensual, like rubbing someone's
shoulders when they have been tensed over a terminal too long,
is much less acceptable with a male I don't know very well than with
a female I don't know very well.  A sensual contact MIGHT have
sexual overtones.  A straight guy will want to know me well enough that
he understands whether there are any or not (and vice versa).
A woman likely doesn't have to be careful to keep any possible sexual
*overtones* out of our interaction because minor overtones are already
likely to be there anyway.  My experience is that this general vein
of reasoning gives useful answers whether it is entirely right or not.

In any case, people manage themselves and their "personal space"
quite differently and you have to take this into account when you
interact with them.  At the individual level I found a sort
of negotiation process that I hadn't preceived before.
A part of the process of getting to know someone and how to interact
with them is negotiating a protocol for personal space.
At some point being around a person it is natural for me to
be physically close or perhaps touch them.
The person will react in some fashion - positively, negatively,
or perhaps not distinguishably - and over a period of time I will
figure out a protocol for them.  This protocol may vary over time
and depends on situations.  Significant problems in personal
interaction can arise from not understanding or following the right
protocol.

Something that I had taken entirely for granted (been oblivious to)
was revealed, on closer examination, as a complex and dynamic process.
No wonder figuring out people is so vastly more difficult than figuring
out computers!
-- 
	Charlie Price - Storage Technology (disk division) - Louisville, CO
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