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07:18 AM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
December 27, 2013
This is my space. Stay out of my space. Except people don’t. You are reading a paper on a plane and the guy is looking over your head as if it was some combo performance. Watch a movie, he’s ignoring his screen and looking at yours, what’s with you, mister. You have just sat down in your seat and someone recognizes you and now he comes and stands in the aisle and you have to stare up at him like a crane and you get a crick in the neck and why can’t we talk after landing.
I am having coffee with a friend the other day (amazing, really, I don’t drink the stuff but it has become a sort of label for a meeting) and this person walks in and sees me and says, fancy seeing you here(????) and then he stands next to the table which is about six inches by four inches and begins to chat, like catch up with things, with no regard for the fact that you might be having a very important discussion.
You are playing a nice, happy game of cards and someone comes and looms over you and ignites a conversation. Can’t you see I’m concentrating, I don’t need you lamp-posting over me. And not only will stay there they will change your luck…for the worse.
Then there are those who become all up front and personal like they need to talk to you with three inches in between you and them and you want to say, baaa-aaack off, mate, give me room to breathe. Even if they sit on the same sofa, it is like they had brought superglue with them.
What about those who visit your office and try to inch up to the desk and read your documents or your computer screen and you know they are trying to do that even if they are upside down (the documents, silly) they just can’t help prying.
Very few people understand the annoyance that invasion of space sparks. I actually get angry and I am a very benign person but I protect and defend my little circle with the dedication of Horatius holding his bridge. Dis is my space, don’t come any closer.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
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