Essay On Breaking Social Norms

The first time I accomplished making someone feel uncomfortable was on the bus on the way to class. I chose a particularly friendly looking girl with long straight blonde hair that had gotten onto the bus before me. Instead of stopping at, what most people would consider a decent distance away from her, I chose to move closer to her. I moved as close to her as I could before she took a small step away from me. When she had realized that I was just standing ‘uncomfortably’ close to her she began to slowly shuffle away. She threw me strange glances and even the other people on the bus stared at me. Many of which had expressions on their faces that clearly said “freak”.

Typically I am a person that enjoys personal space and well defined proximity boundaries. I feel uncomfortable when people get too close to me, or when they are too touchy, which is why breaking this social norm was difficult for me. I thought that deviance from what I, personally, have strong boundaries in would bring better understanding to others and what they believe is a socially acceptable distance from person to person, when there is a choice. I felt uncomfortable getting so close to people and then making them feel uncomfortable, which made it slightly more difficult for me to repeat on multiple occasions.

Negative
The ‘punishment’ I received for standing too close to someone was that the people in the surrounding area judged me immediately and began to label me as ‘weird’ and someone to stay away from. If I continued this deviance then i would surely have more people avoiding me rumors of sorts going around, which would definitely affect my social life. And at this age having a social life is important to our development, so having that taken away from us is