Don't Pet the Sweaty Things

I've seen this phenomenon more times than I've seen the bullfrog scene from Family Guy (makes me laugh every time): once someone picks a seat in a classroom, you almost have to move hell or high water to get them to sit anywhere else. It's like we all have this compulsion to claim our territory — to lift our legs on a seat, if you will — in order to make our surroundings a little more familiar, a little more controlled.

Of course, I too am guilty of this habitual territory marking. As someone who dislikes direct eye contact and any expectation of success, I like to sit in the back row. After being this way for years, I've discovered that the people who sit beside me in the back share my sentiments: we're habitually late kids who "multitask" on our Macs during the lecture and occasionally indulge in noisy snacking habits. We wear skirts without keeping our legs together and use our homework to mop up the red wine stains on our beige carpets. We're our own special type of community.

It's funny — it's almost like we choose our seats according to what personality we have. The people like me who assert themselves minimally and always feel like they're being watched by a duck prefer the back of the room. People who assert themselves tremendously and maintain awkward periods of eye contact sit near the front. Students who like to herd things sit on the sidelines. As for everybody else settled in the middle — they seem generally well-adjusted to society, engaging in the (supposedly) normal human-to-human interaction forced upon them through the tight seating arrangements. This group, obviously, makes up most of the population.

Most kids sit in the center of the room not because it has the most seats, but because most of us are hardwired to choose from the middle. One study discovered that when people are faced with choosing between identical items — such as a line of identical symbols, grocery items, or bathroom stalls — most will choose an item located in the middle. This makes me wonder if people who skirt the outsides of a classroom are actually higher risk-takers, or perhaps more decisive people.

This reflection of our personalities pertains not only to seat choices within the classroom, but also to seat choices within restaurants, doctors' offices, and yes, even bathroom stalls. Germaphobes — people also known for being somewhat uptight and controlling — try to find stalls that appear to be either the most disinfected or have the most toilet paper. (Note to these people: studies have shown that the first stall is the cleanest. I advise you choose this one.) People who adhere to their biological compulsions choose a stall somewhere in the middle, and those who are the most private choose a stall at the very end of the row, away from the door, away from the likelihood of peeping toms or neighboring squatters (this is my category). Choosing a stall is quite the art form — so much that someone even developed a game about it.

I love that it's not just our personalities that become exposed with our seat choice, but also our incessant devotion to habit and our dire need for familiarity. Every time I go into Philly West, I sit at the window seat facing Higgins street — and if my table is taken, I almost lose my appetite (almost). I always sit in a certain spot in the balcony of the Wilma when I watch a new film, and I always sit on the side of the Mountain Line bus that faces Mount Sentinel when it crosses Madison Bridge. These are all inconsequential habits to everyone except myself, but they make all the difference to me in my everyday life. My habits organize my life into something familiar, something I "own." It seems it's really just a matter of control. And I'm sure one of these days I'll sit next to someone on the bus who loves watching the sun rise over the "M" just as much as I do. And — voila — we've just formed ourselves another special type of community.

rebecca.spika@umontana.edu