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naomi - "Andy, To be perfectly frank, the ‘personal space’ issue wouldn’t have occurred to me – I tend to reserve that rule for strangers."
I understand that we have personally defined boundaries in terms of strangers, whom we encounter briefly, and probably never again. So you automatically know how close is too close if you are standing on the Tube for instance.
I do think we employ respect for space even with our partners. My wife prefers to get dressed alone, and I would never dream of entering the bathroom while she is using the toilet, even though my family growing up thought nothing of doing just that, and would wander in and out at will.
I think a lot of respect for personal space (that phrase again Sqad!) grows up from unconcious signals of what is and what is not appreciated or tolerated, and we work accordingly.
It can come down to eating off someone else's plate - some people are quite happy if someone pinches a chip, others risk a fork-and-hand coincidence, again, it's personal comfort that is the rule.
Part of loving someone is to accept and respect their personal boundaries, even if they are different from your own. Charles Saatchi obviously differs frommost in his assessment of love and respect.