National Personal Space Day Date in the current year: November 30, 2024

Personal space is highly variable, depending on cultural practices, personal preferences, social situations, and relationships between people. Socially acceptable personal space can range from less than 90 centimeters in countries such as Argentina, Bulgaria, Peru and Ukraine to more than 120 centimeters in Hungary, Romania and Saudi Arabia. Different standards and expectations of personal space can lead to misunderstandings and even conflict.

What most cultures have in common is the understanding that personal space boundaries need to be respected, at least in theory. In practice, however, violations of personal space boundaries are not that uncommon. Even well-meaning touch can hurt people, so it is important to raise personal space awareness.

National Personal Space Day was created by Give Space, operating as For the Love of Peach, LLC. For the Love of Peach was founded by Carol Winner, whose mother fought colon cancer for decades. Multiple surgeries left her immune system compromised, so she had to refrain from physical contact in order to protect herself from infections. Unfortunately, some family and members still hugged and kissed Winner’s mom without asking first, exposing her to infections.

In 2015, Winner found For the Love of Peach to educate people about the importance of social distancing; keep in mind that this was five years before the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing wasn’t something people talked about much. Four years later, she launched National Personal Space Day to raise awareness of personal space boundaries and encourage people to be more attentive and always ask before touching someone.

Winner encourages people to wear the Peach symbol to signal their need for personal space. A lot of people find it easy to respect the personal boundaries of others but struggle with asserting and protecting their own boundaries. The Peach symbol communicates its wearer’s need for personal space. It doesn’t matter whether your need stems from having a compromised immune system, aversion to touch, or simply not feeling like being touched at this particular moment; you deserve your personal space to be respected.

There are many ways to observe National Personal Space Day. You can share your story about personal space and your relationship with it, teach your children, nephews or younger cousins to protect their personal space and respect the personal space of others, learn about the ways you can demonstrate your kindness, empathy and support without hugging or kissing someone, buy official merchandise at givespacepeach.com to support the project, promote social distancing, and spread the word on social media with the hashtags #NationalPersonalSpaceDay, #PersonalSpaceDay and #GiveSpace.