I would kill to see my sixth grade teacher’s expression if she had to chaperone a dance for European students. I had several teachers who would rush to separate students whose bodies came within a foot of each other while they were “slow dancing.”

I even remember serving a detention for giving my boyfriend in high school a peck before heading off to class.

Yet, in all the European countries that I’ve encountered – where personal space is often virtually nonexistent – public displays of affection are often taken to another level.

You can easily pick the American students out of the crowd at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a university in Catalunya, because they’re the only ones who do a double take when they see couples straddling each other on benches in the arboretum. It’s the exception, not the norm, to ride the metro and not bump into a couple who appear to be trying to swallow each other’s faces.

I have several theories as to why even little old ladies seem to take this behavior in stride. The first is the fact that it is culturally appropriate to live with your parents until the age of thirty – partly because Spanish people highly value family relations and partly because rent in Barcelona is anything but cheap. Regardless, these people don’t have much of a shot at privacy until years after their American counterparts. Perhaps this is why rear-end squeezing and rampant make-out sessions in public are so common.

While the public displays of affection are much more common in teenagers and people in their 20s, it’s not nonexistent among the elderly population. It’s just plain okay to blatantly caress your loved one anytime and anyplace.

Another theory I have is based on the idea that Europeans aren’t afraid to touch each other. There are no cold, informal handshakes here. In Spain people greet each other with a kiss on each cheek. In America, people often move several feet out of the way to avoid touching another person on the street.

In Spain, well, what’s another collision? No pasa nada.

As I struggle to avoid staring at the girl who has climbed onto her boyfriend’s lap on the seat next to me on the train and doesn’t seem to notice that her elbow keeps knocking into me as she strokes his hair, I can’t help but reflect on how much value is placed on affection in this country. Parents shower their kids with kisses in the beautiful parks and gardens and elderly couples walk along the narrow streets hand in hand. Maybe that’s why the couples who can’t seem to take their hands off each other could probably care less if I find it a little weird.

Heck, maybe they have a better grasp on how to live than space-obsessed Americans. It shouldn’t be considered a bad thing to show a little love sometimes.

In fact, maybe the ease with which Spanish people show affection adds to the fact that they seem to live lives that are much less stressful overall than those of many Americans’. Maybe a touch – or a grope – would force Americans to remember how important it should be to take the time to enjoy the company of others. Then again, maybe it would just make more people blush.

After more than three months abroad, I’ve stopped doing double takes and don’t mind the intertwined couples who can only add to the loving atmosphere. Yet even I have to draw the line somewhere, and I must say that a thick black line needs to be drawn between kissing couples and the two people I saw literally going at it in broad daylight against a government building. Come on now people.