Haphephobia

Haphephobia: A fear of being touched.
Personal space is a good thing.
I'm as antisocial and interaction avoidant as the next person (especially if the next person is a crochety recluse who only communicates with the outside world via the internet unless she really can't avoid it)
However, even I can see that there seems to be a bit of an out break of  haphephobia in western society today.
Unless we are drunk or in some other way chemically numbed to it we seem to have a horror of being touched by strangers. No! I don't mean just in a creepy who's hand is that on my bum Kinda way! I mean that we now seem to regard close proximity of another human being whether accidental, circumstantial or (god forbid) on purpose as some sort of hideous social foe-par or worse a violating personal attack. There is countless information on-line on the rules of personal space. 

OK!
So in a spacious building or outdoor area these guidelines may seem workable even reasonable.
However we live in an over crowded world people so sometimes when what we all really want is this...

 
What we actually get is this...

Just look at their faces the quiet reconciliation to the horror. Everyone determinedly avoiding eye contact looking at phones, books, their own reflection in the window. But NOT. I REPEAT NOT !AT ANYBODY ELSE ! Don't look! Don't Smile! Do not ,on pain of death, attempt to strike up a conversation on the weather or how late the bus was!! What were you thinking you FREAK???? Hold in your extremities. Make yourself as small as possible and you may just get through this hellish experience without having to feel the sickening warmth of a strangers rain dampened limb against yours.
Now I mock but I'm feeling you people.
Because secretly my Idea world looks a bit like this...

Only the guy in the hospital scrubs would be David Tennant and there wouldn't be any zombies (except for me of course)
But putting up with these little inconveniences (which is really all they are) is just part of living in a busy society. If can't take it go move to some remote Scottish Island.  
DON'T DO THIS!!!

Or this

I know you don't WANT someone to sit next to you! I don't WANT to sit next to you ether!!
But god damn it I paid for my ticket too and I have a right to a seat!!!!
Quiet frankly hogging an extra seat on crowded public transport make's you a selfish ignorant tosser.
Everybody's thinking it! Everyone on the train/bus/tube is silently tutting to themselves and thinking Wanker!
Of course nobody is going to say anything to you as we're all afraid that the sort of blatant sociopath who thinks its OK to leave old ladies and pregnant women standing just so their knock off Gucci handbag or imaginary friend Clive can have a seat to themselves. Will inevitably turn abusive and violent if someone should dare to attempt to burst their little bubble of antisocial self importance.
But I just want you to know that we all hate you OK even Clive hates you and he gets to sit on his 40 minute journey though hell.
I'm a sensitive soul really.
It's not fair that I should have to feel angry vibes of irritation directed at me when ever I sit next to someone in what was unfortunately the only spare seat available. It's gotten so bad now that I automatically mutter an awkward "Sorry." as I sit down next to someone.
WHY????!!!
Why am I sorry? Don't I have as much right to be there as you? Didn't I pay my fair? Am I not HUMAN???

OK deep breaths Release the anger


Try looking at this....

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Even Kittens have issues nowadays!
We're all doooooooomed!

Did they have the right Idea on Logan's run?

Just in case you have no Idea what Logan's run is ie  You're too young too be sent to Carousel.

You should probably know that the whole premise of the film is that in the future people have decided that in order to live a Utopian  lifestyle everyone over 30 has to get the chop.
Only they don't say that. Of course not no body would sign up for that and if you're a ruling power and you want people to agree to be part of something horrific the obvious option is to lie through your teeth.
So you're not of to be shot by lasers in some ghastly circus of death while all the young pretty people clap and shout and feel glad they're not so hideously OLD.
No you're off to Carousel for renewal. (No parallels with religious doctrines please it's just to easy a shot)
Any way my point is that, as I approach 38 as a terminally single woman on bellow the average wage  and only just above average intelligence, is it such a bad Idea to get rid of the surplus population at 30.
Take me for example.
Actually that's the problem nobody will.
I've had a good 37 year shot at making some real contribution to society.
So far I've underachieved spectacularly.  I'm in a low paid job with little prospect of promotion. I have debts. I'm overweight and antisocial. I have no real talent for anything other than navel  gazing and more to the point I've failed to do what even the scrapings from the shallow end of the gene pool who appear on Jeremy Kyle some how manage to do (between bouts of drug taking and trolling on Facebook that is).
I've failed to reproduce!
Quite frankly I feel like a massive burden on society and society (including my friends and family) seem to agree.
Come on we all know that even if someone Won the Nobel peace prize, an Oscar and hopped round the world for charity whilst simultaneously writing a ground breaking novel and  finding the cure for cancer.
You'd all still look at them with horror an pity and think "God 37 and still single that's a bit pathetic there must be something seriously wrong with HER!"
OK so all these people found their callings later in life http://listosaur.com/miscellaneous/10-people-who-found-their-calling-later-in-life.html
But why take the Chance? I could just as easily bloom late as a serial killer or (very likely) just end up a scary old cat lady.
And Why should my family have to worry about what will happen to me?
Why should my married friends have to feel guilty that they don't invite me to their all couples social events with their less needy and pathetic friends?
Why should society have to foot the bill for burying whats left of me when I'm found dead alone in my flat half eaten by cats?
If I can't even be ARSED to get up off my oversized butt and get knocked up by some grubby stranger so I can pass on my genetic material like a good little ape then do I deserve to survive????
The worlds over populated,overcrowded  and overstretched. Shouldn't the job I have, the home I live in, the resources I consume and even the air I breath be more wisely allocated to a more useful and successful member of society?
Well the answer to that question is....
NO !!!!
Piss off!!!
This is not an episode of fucking Big Brother!! 
You do not get to evict me because you don't like me or because I ate all the cornflakes or because you think you stand a better chance of winning if I'm gone!

No thankfully British society doesn't work that way. Not yet anyway.
Some people will annoy you. Some will infuriate you. Some will just make you feel a little bit uncomfortable that they even exist. But that's just what you're all gonna have to put up with in order that you can look yourselves in the mirror and see someone you don't want to vomit on. It's just genetic diversity Kids and don't forget if you wanna start messing with that just to get rid of a few weirdos. How can you be sure you won't be next?
I got pushed out the same hole as all the rest of you (well not literally my mother's a good Catholic girl ) and therefore have the same right to be here!
Sod Carousel I'm off to the pub with a book!!