This qualification aside, I shall use the term gathering to refer to any set of two or more individuals whose members include all and only those who are at the moment in one another's immediate presence. By the term situation I shall refer to the full spatial environment anywhere within which an entering person becomes a member of the gathering that is {or does then become} present. Situations begin when mutual monitoring occurs, and lapse when the second-last person has left. In order to stress the full extent of any such unit, I will sometimes employ the term situation at large.
( Erving Goffman )
[ Behavior in Public Places ]
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