My class once did a experiment on personal space, and the instructor picked two random students who didn’t know each other and told them to walk closer to each other. About 1.5 arms length, they were unable to move closer, and started to lean backward when told to step a little closer. I used to see 5×03 personal space scene to be more awkward than UST filled, but after seeing that experiment, it seemed a bit odd that Dean told Cas to back off without leaning back himself. Thoughts?

elizabethrobertajones:

*snorts* Yeah, Dean has a world of opportunities to NOT turn around and stare directly into Cas’s eyes/examine his mouth from about 6 inches away. 😛 I mean he sees him in the mirror in the first place, and when the camera pans out after the close up and Cas steps away you can see there was a ton of room for Dean to side-step or lean away if he’d so wished.

I mean a TON.

(Hey lookit the flowers I never noticed that before :3)

I charitably attribute Dean choosing to turn around like that but *not* lean away as expected (and apparently as general human behaviour dictates according to your class :P) as a sort of challenge to his right to stand in the space. And he gets Cas to back off. But in every actual measure of success I’m pretty sure he loses. 😛 It’s like f-ckyeahfutbol said in this comment on a different bit of the same scene here, 

The only person Dean unbalances in this scene is himself.

Dean turns around to sort of psych out Cas and… Well, what I see then is Dean being totally knocked for six by how close Cas is. If he wanted to hold his ground and *silently* push Cas out of his space he could have been a lot more menacing and *assertive* in his body language. Not that I think it would have worked on Cas anyway, but Dean just crumples on the whole standing his ground thing and can’t meet Cas’s eye and his eyes go all over his face, and instead of trying to push Cas out of his space non-verbally he has to say something because he immediately lost the staring competition (it’s Cas, what did he think was going to happen? :P) and by the time he makes Cas back off it’s probably more about saving face that he doesn’t lean away. He’s caught probably like 2 parts stubbornness one part involuntary fuck I’m breathing the same air as him teenage crush panic. 😛

And then he leans away with this exaggerated movement and walks out of the personal space bubble only after he’s made Cas back off. Sort of, I dunno, pretending he won the stand off, and over-compensating with the whole “I really ought to have just leaned back and walked away” once the camera takes a hop back to reveal just how lame Dean was being there. 😀

The rest of that scene is a ballet of personal space invasion and uncomfortable staring. 10/10 would recommend.

(Hey lookit the flowers I never noticed that before :3)

You will never be able to unseen them ever again.