Personal Space Issues

Maybe I'm crazy, but do you guys find people invade your personal space "bubble" more since you've lost weight?  Here is my theory, my body used to take up more space so people stood farther away from my "centre", but now that I'm smaller, people seem to be closer to me. They are just closer to my centre....I know it sounds nuts, but I feel so invaded!!

OMG you are not nuts at all!  I feel the same way!  I was just to afraid to ask, lol. So good on you for stating it!  I feel so invaded now it is odd.  I feel like I find myself taking a step back just to have the extra breath space when they get to close.   You are probably right that it is cause I was bigger and distance was a necessity back then.   

Now that you mention it I think you may have something there. I'm quite involved in my church so a lot of people 'know' me tho I have never met them. Ladies I don't even know and have never spoken to came up to me this  weekend and were hugging and patting me and sharing their own weight struggles. Maybe our former size made us feel less approachable before? 😊 

I sometimes think that it just feels like people are invading my personal space, because even if they stood the same distance away from the most protruding part of my body when I was 336 lbs, they were probably a good half to full foot further away from my head than they are if they stand the same distance away from it now. :)

I've also wondered if it might be an unconscious thing, that people might feel like they can come closer to someone who is thin than they can to someone who is big? Perhaps an unconscious recoiling thing, that they don't want to stand too close to us when we're big? I don't know.

Oh, absolutely and I think your theory is a major part of it in that people couldn't get as close to you (physically) due to size and now that you're smaller and "take up less space", they're in yours. I went through a lot of body-space issues when I lost the weight - people standing closer, sitting closer, talking closer, etc. It was a little unnerving at times. I also theorize that people generally find me more "approachable" as a small person (not that I wasn't before, people's perceptions/biases of overweight people come into play here).  I also had spacial difficulties with not comprehending that I didn't have to turn sideways to get in between aisles and tables, etc.  I think we eventually get used to it all but it does take some time.

I still turn sideways in turnstiles LOL. I feel weird hitting them head on, like I won't fit. 

Kelly, unbelievably, I still do the same thing in turnstiles. It doesn't help that I'm generally a clutz and banging into things at random which seems to have me constantly on "high alert avoidance". LOL

Me too! I ran into a tree branch on the weekend....i'm so short that tree branches are usually way above me. Didn't even see it because I was gabbing away to my running partner, who, at the time, was commenting on my strength and agility.....it was a good laugh.

Oh yea I hear ya all.  I find moving behind someone's chair is always a comedy.  They push in, I push out - could fit a mack truck between us.

I have found some people I knew before want to become "closer" friends, strongly sensing it's because I don't have the fat disease anymore. (I just don't have the stomach for that one - pun intended)

Good obersavation on the close talkers shall we call that a NSV???

I think the really close talkers are more of a NSA - Non-scale annoyance. ;)