The Psychology of Owning a Car Parking Space

 

Feathers a little ruffled here!

I do not own a car but I live in a building of eight apartments with a side offering of a small car park. There are marked spaces plus two or three more available nearby in a garage. Once a year the owners of the apartments meet, this year on the ubiquitous Zoom, to discuss various relevant items. I do not attend as I am a tenant; of the owners, three live here [soon to be four] in three apartments and only one

is a car owner; the other five are absentee landlords, presumably with cars. The recent meeting apparently resulted in a very heated discussion about …. car parking. Of the absentee landlords, one lives in California; one in Monaco; one on the Belgian coast. The others live in Belgium but not in Brugge. I would guess that landlord visits by car to the building are not weekly. However, one Belgium-based owner had visited recently and his car parking space had been filled with someone else’s car. Reportedly, the fury that this aroused, presumably in the initial encounter, and certainly in the subsequent meeting, was considerable. Among the tasks allotted for the Syndic to carry out, was to discover if I had had guests. When family or friends visit for a few days, I had been told I could allow them to park in an available space and this I have done with the minority of my visitors with a car.

I received a phone call from the Syndic which began with the question, Do you have a visitor at the moment? In Covid I live at least 95+% of my time alone and cannot have visitors, residential or not. I spent Christmas alone fortified, as is my usual week, by Facetime chats. I was astonished at the question [because of Covid] but did soon discover that it was rooted in the Parking Problem. There is no need for further tedious explication though I have to admit, that my feathers were ruffled!!

And so to my question: What IS it about a private, personal parking space that can ignite the passions

in a way that a group of adults with untroubled lives, will spend a long, angry time on ‘discussion’? [“I will clamp your wheels!] I have mentioned this to a few friends and each had a story involving car parking and anger! Humans are territorial anyway and the car feels personal when one is in one’s own, driving along. It IS a personal space where one can be untidy, or store clothes and possessions, even money!. Somehow one’s car links up to the narcissist within! I can do what I like; it’s my car! The inner narcissist released! Perhaps this strong feeling of ownership is extended to include the parking space one owns too? I pay for that; it’s MINE! So the ego feels challenged, violated, when a stranger parks there without my permission [which will never be given!] I have observed that people who “blow up” quickly over something, often seem to have other anger issues; a clutch of other elements in their lives which they feel somehow diminishes them as people, and hurts them enough to cause anger. But can all the people angry about their misused parking space be SO angry? We aren’t talking cancer or heart attack or Long Covid here; just somebody parking in my space! To this car-less, car parking space-less person, it all seems incredibly petty and destructive of self and others.

Astridpark tulips

Home again after 5 months' quarantine

But in the meantime, there are tulips out in Astridpark; the swans of Brugge are out of quarantine [protection from bird 'flu] and gracing the canals again; a new rhododendron, President Roosevelt, graces my terrace and begins the annual beautification of that space; Mah Jong for three of us continues to provide a companionable few hours each week with both intellectual and sociable stimulation while my other Zoom and Facetime interludes serve to keep me in touch and connected. Feathers remain unruffled even stroked!

President Roosevelt in bloom.

Four rather refined ladies playing Mah Jong