About Flight Distance—Where Is Safe?

Published on 4.8.24 at garyborjesson.substack.com

Animals generally have a personal space around themselves which they prefer that conspecifics (animals of the same species) and other animals (e.g. humans) do not enter. The space, often called a flight distance, will vary with a number of things including the species in question, familiarity with the animal(s) entering the space, the particular fear level of the focus animal, among many other factors. Typically, an animal’s initial response is to move away from the approaching animal, i.e., to maintain a minimum flight distance. The concept applies to almost all animals, as well as insects, though is particularly well studied in livestock species like cattle. - International Society of Applied Ethology

I first learned of “flight distance” when researching my book about friendship and dogs. Now, as a therapist, I think of flight distance all the time. Orienting ourselves to others, finding our safe space, is one of those animal things we do—even the insects do it!—no awareness required. Though in keeping with the theme of these notes, it always helps to make the unconscious conscious.

One of the first examples I came across was researchers measuring the flight distances of wolves and feral dogs scavenging at dumps. The dogs had a shorter flight distance—they could tolerate being in sight of, and closer proximity to, humans than wolves. They were more successful feeding there because they didn’t run off every time a human being came around but could keep feeding. The wolves and dogs both know in their bones that people can hurt and kill them, but dogs have adapted to be less worried about it. Coming closer, they can explore the possibilities of advantageous alliances with others, even if the others are a dump and its human visitors.

As social animals we pay a dear price for missing out on the opportunities that come with closeness—which includes tolerating the vulnerability and anxiety it can bring. From an interpersonal perspective, It’s an advantage if you’re able to stay put, not running away every time you feel anxious about some perceived threat. Of course, that’s easier if you learned from an early age that the world is generally a safe place. That’s a mark of having a secure attachment style.) Lacking this early experience of security, we can still learn how to feel more safe, trusting, and connected around others. We can learn, so to speak, how to decrease our flight distance. Attachment theory hopefully describes this in terms of an “earned” secure attachment style.

Being a lone wolf is as hard a fate for us (mostly) as it is for wolves. As social animals we thrive both individually and collectively when we’re well-connected. No surprise, then, that loneliness and mental illness go hand in hand. Being separated and polarized as many of us now are—suffering these vast flight distances—it’s no wonder the lost connections disrupt our lives. We need each other! Life itself exists only through ongoing interdependence. Our very selves are cobbled together from other selves, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

Of the estimated 30 trillion cells in your body—less than a third—are human.

The other 70-90% are bacterial and fungal.

Not to mention all the other forces that make us who we are, and that we want to bring into closer alliance with each other. In the last note I told how Socrates compared our psyches to a charioteer with two horses; there can be winning cooperation, or debilitating conflict, depending on how closely each of these players cooperates.

Becoming more conscious of our individual fight-or-flight-initiation distances, as it were, helps us discover what we need in order to feel safer and move closer. This opens new possibilities for interaction and cooperation, for making allies and friends. Of course, there’s always the chance we’ll be hurt or killed in the process, since closing the distance does increase our vulnerability. Those we love are often most able to hurt us.

Still, it’s encouraging, to me anyway, to remember that all the more complex and glorious forms of life—like dogs and horses and charioteers—emerged from simpler individual forms of life closing the flight distance. The closer contact and symbiosis it encouraged was so fruitful and advantageous that eventually the arrangement became obligatory, and a new kind of life emerged. (This is how eukaryotic cells evolved from prokaryotic cells.)

That close acquaintance becomes the partner of your dreams, and now you can’t live without each other!