A Good Distance Helps Maintain a Good Relationship

On a winter day with cold wind blowing, a group of hedgehogs gathered together to share heat. However, the closer they got to each other, the more their sharp spines hurt one another. Not being able to stand the pain, they had to take one step back. The hedgehog’s dilemma which came from this story is a metaphor about the psychology of humans with a desire to form an intimacy with others and to keep some distance at the same time.

Men grow up under the parents’ care at home, make friends at school, and work with co-workers in their workplaces. In other words, they live, constantly building relationships with their parents, spouse, relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc. While having conversations, exchanging emotions, and sharing experiences, we feel happy, and sometimes sad and painful.

According to an extensive survey carried out by Harvard Medical School, the answer to a happy and healthy life lies in a good relationship with other people. A good relationship means an intimate relationship. It is because a sense of satisfaction and happiness can be felt when intimacy is felt while being with someone.

However, when they get too close, intimacy often turns into inconvenience. It is just as the hedgehogs in the story gathered together to share heat, but then got hurt by each other’s spines. A scholar said, “When you are too far, you feel cold, and when you are too close, you get burned,” comparing a human relationship to a heater. Indeed, an appropriate distance is necessary among people.

An Appropriate Distance Is Necessary for Everything

The reason living beings prosper only on Earth among many other planets in our Solar System is because there is water on Earth. One of the important conditions that allow water to exist on Earth is the appropriate distance between the Sun and Earth. If Earth were closer to the Sun than it is now, all the water would evaporate, and if it were a little farther from the Sun than it is now, all the water would freeze.

All animals, including birds, fish, and primates, have an instinct to secure at least a minimum space for themselves. When a predator is approaching, animals don’t run away unless it gets to a certain distance from them; this is called a flight distance. Giraffes feel secure and free from enemies when they are about 150 m [492 ft] away, buffalos 70 m [230 ft], and monkeys 20 m [66 ft]. There is a distance where they feel comfortable even within the same species. Hippopotamuses, parakeets, pigs, and penguins try to keep a close distance with the others of the same species, but animals like horses, cats, and hawks have a habit of keeping a distance from each other.

The distance from each other is even more important for plants which spend their lifetime on the same spots. Normally, a distance of 50 ㎝ [1.6 ft] is kept between tomatoes, 3 m [10 ft] between apple trees, and 25 m [82 ft] between metasequoia glyptostroboides [dawn redwood] when they are planted. Those are the distances that the plants can let the sunlight and breeze reach them and stretch their stems and branches as much as they want, without being disturbed while growing.

There is also an invisible range of zone among people. The physical space that people don’t want to be invaded by other people is called the personal space. This is categorized by four different levels. They are public (3.6 to 7.5 m) such as the distance between a speaker and the audience, social (1.2 to 3.6 m) such as the distance between co-workers or customers at a store, personal (46 ㎝ to 1.2 m) such as the distance among friends or acquaintances, and intimate (less than 46 ㎝) such as the distance between family members or lovers.

The anthropologist Edward T. Hall said that the personal space doesn’t simply indicate a physical distance, but a distance of the heart. It is natural that the distances vary according to the level of intimacy. However, if you ignore keeping a certain distance just because you are close to them, you may invade their personal space.

Self-Centered Way of Thinking Invades Others’ Personal Spaces

How would you feel if someone entered your house without permission, lie down on the bed, or opened the refrigerator without asking? You would not only feel unpleasant but want to sue that person for housebreaking. However, we often invade other people’s personal spaces with no hesitation although we are mindful of the visible personal spaces.

We tend to make such a mistake with people who are very intimate with us such as the family members. Some parents meddle with their child’s life, telling them what to do, or inquire the spouse of about every detail of even the things that he or she doesn’t want to talk about, thinking that there shouldn’t be any secrets or personal lives among family members. Or, some even restrict or control a family member with the pretext that it is all for them.

In the act of trespassing a family member’s personal space without hesitation, self-centered thinking plays a part. Examples are a desire to change the other person the way one wants, an attitude to believe one has the right to exercise power as he or she sacrifices and works hard, a mind to not agree with the other person’s decision with the faith that only his or her will is right, etc. This comes from a lack of respect for other people.

No matter how much you think that you are showing concern and doing favor, or even if you didn’t have an intention to hurt the other person, they might be stressed out, feeling that their personal space has been invaded. The more a person feels suppressed, the more they tend to try to escape from restraint, and they even hide things that they don’t really need to hide. There are things that can easily be solved if one does them voluntarily and willingly with an open heart through empathy and understanding, but there can be an issue or a hostile feeling if one is forced to do them.

In other words, if you try to shorten the distance with your own greed without respecting the distance the other person feels comfortable with, they will only feel displeased and take steps back.

Expressions that could invade others’ personal spaces

• If you had time for that, do ( ) instead!
• You’re going to regret later. You will see.
• What’s your annual income?
• Just do it!
• That’s your problem!
• That’s not a good way to educate your child.
• Who are you going to vote for at the election?
• Why can’t you do something so easy like this?
• I’m telling you this for you.
• I told you! I knew that was going to happen.
• You shouldn’t do that. I’m telling you this because I’m worried about you.
• That’s all you can say when I helped you?

Respect for Others Makes a Good Relationship of Heart

To keep a friendly relationship among family members, there needs to be a distance between each other that won’t invade each other’s space. Respecting others’ personal spaces does not mean that you don’t mind whatever they do. It means acknowledging them as an independent human and accepting the fact that they could have different thoughts and opinions from you, and respecting their choices and decisions. If you take one step back like that, the intimacy will get even stronger. As you have room in your minds, you will be able to make each other free and happy.

If you want to be involved with someone else’s business or provide a direction, what needs to be done first is to ask their idea instead of trying to help without asking or forcing a certain direction. This is just like ringing the bell before entering someone’s house and getting permission to enter. For example, if your child doesn’t look so happy after he’s back from school, don’t urge him to tell you what had happened. Instead, you need to ask him in a soft tone, “Can you tell me what happened?”, “How would you like me to help you?” If you don’t like your spouse’s set of values or habit, it is better to have an open-hearted conversation and explain what makes you feel uncomfortable instead of only demanding them to change.

If you truly are there for the other person, observe him with kind eyes and make a comfortable atmosphere so that he can ask for help when he needs some help. Although you give a piece of sincere advice, the one who has the right to make the final decision belongs to him. Therefore, even if he makes a different choice and it is followed by a negative result, blaming and rebuking should be avoided.

Concern and affection can be conveyed properly if you give when the other person wants them and as much as he wants them and the way he wants them. In doing this, you need to consider what will make the other person happy and how he will accept your approach, and you also need to be mindful of what hurts his feelings, and what remarks he is sensitive about, and what kind of situations is burdensome to him.

If your family feels upset about what you say and do, understand them thinking, ‘I see you feel uncomfortable with this kind of things,’ instead of being disappointed and thinking, ‘I can’t even say this (or do this) to my own family member?’ There are times when you have to hold back yourself even though you want to ask in detail and confirm everything, or pretend you don’t know anything although you do. Since the boundary of the other person’s personal space is decided by him, not by you, let’s respect it and try to keep it.

The Chinese word 人間 (ren jian) for human is a combination of 人 [person] and 間 [between]. It means that a human is a person who lives among other people. Starting from tiny atoms, the smallest unit of a matter, to the planets in our Galaxy outside Earth, they are all kept in order thanks to appropriate distances among them. The same is true for people.

Since the distances between people have no precise numerical value but vary, depending on how one feels or on the situation, we have conflicts from time to time. But if you make an effort to adjust the distance between you and another person with respect, a warm atmosphere will hover between the two. It is just as two hedgehogs try to find a distance that can make them feel happy without poking each other.