HOPE SMITH
managing editor
hope.smith393@my.tccd.edu
Extreme public displays of affection are a hop, skip and a jump away from being so weird it could encroach on certain federal laws given the right grounds.
It’s an extreme statement, but there’s only so many times one can simply exist in public and get hit with a blatant, wound up gut punch of PDA before a viewpoint has to be written. It’s been enough times – truth be told.
Call this the statement of an unreasonably angry hater, but if that’s what it has to be then this ball will roll regardless because the hate train departs soon and there’s no getting off once becoming a witness to a couple in the middle of a library with a weird issue with PDA.
It’s not even that they are in a relationship. It’s that people with PDA problems are in a relationship, and it’s become everyone else’s problem.
Because it should be said, people don’t need to be policed. Hold hands with people, that’s fine! Hug, highfive, kiss someone—probably someone you have kissed before—it is a free country, or free enough to where loving someone publicly is within a person’s right.
The love language of physical touch is valid. Wanting to just be near a person and have a hand on theirs or holding onto their arm makes sense, people shouldn’t feel bad for that.
But in extreme cases that just brush the penal code, it is a matter of decency and respect for the people existing.
While it’s not a person’s job to cater to everyone else around them, it takes no effort to save certain things for anywhere that isn’t a public setting.
Sometimes all it takes is putting oneself into another’s shoes and ask, “Is this considered to be extreme for a public setting?” Or “Would I want to see other people doing this in a public setting?” Or even, “Should this be done where people and children read books?”—just to name a few things.
There is always a time and place. It’s not reasonable to force every other unconsenting party to just be okay with it because it’s in the moment. Why is the moment happening in public at all? Wouldn’t it be better if the moment were in a private place that would make it more personal and individual?
Also, it’s just awkward.
Standing in lines shouldn’t induce these certain reactions—one would think—and the fact that it would for some couples brings up a lot of awkward questions nobody wants to ask. Living in your own world isn’t so bad until others are standing maybe a foot away from said world. It’s got a distance-decay effect because now everyone in the vicinity has to acknowledge what’s going on.
In short, couples don’t need to feel like they are in a PG-13 rated movie but at the very least should respect the spaces around them because it’s everyone’s world to live in. It’s a little more bearable when everyone has enough respect for each other to the point where some things can just wait.
