Everyone has a bubble. There is an area of space around us that invaded by another person can lead to a high level of discomfort.
For some people this bubble is rather small but its there. There is a threshold, a tipping point from which a person can move from being comfortable to being uncomfortable.
As an experiment I tested the distance of this comfort bubble. I noticed that when I got within a foot and a half of another person they moved just enough away to recover the distance. If I continued to invade the space again, they would almost immediately recover again. It was fascinating! This is not a behavior we think about, especially when wandering around a store. But it worked with EVERY person I came into contact with. I'd move in closer than a foot and a half, they moved about two feet away at least, at times even abandoning the book or magazine that they were shopping for. It seemed that Powell's doesn't sell anything interesting enough to get someone to put up with the invasion of their space bubble.
Although this only happens when there is enough space to recover the distance. When in a crowded elevator people are much closer to one another than a foot and a half. However, people still distribute themselves as evenly as possible, allowing for as much individual room as they can get.
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