It’s the week before Christmas, and I’m on my way from Seattle to my daughter’s house in Indianapolis.
After changing planes in Denver, I find my seat, roll my coat inside-out, slide it into the compartment above seat 20C, and glance at my seatmates. The guy in the window seat is wearing a Bruno Mars-style hat and fat earphones and reading a book on his ipad. He looks to be in his late twenties. The young woman in the middle seat has long blond hair and looks even younger.
She opens a giant-sized plastic container filled with greens, avocado, tomatoes and chicken.
“Looks healthy,” I say as I push my “personal items” under the seat in front of me.
I like to read when I fly. But I also enjoy getting acquainted with the people around me … if they feel like talking, that is.
The woman obviously does. She’s going back to Indy for the holidays, she tells me. She started out in San Francisco where she’s taking a graduate course in Marriage Counseling. It’s a great course. Lots of practical experience.
“Fifty-percent of first marriages end in divorce,” she starts to say. “The problem is …”
Suddenly the guy in the window seat bursts out singing. Not stadium-loud, but definitely more than a humming-along-with-his-earphone volume. Strange, because he looks perfectly normal, rather good looking in fact.
The young woman and I look at each other. Someone across the aisle leans over. “Lucky you,” she mouths.
Despite the distraction, the young woman and I continue talking. She’s enthusiastic about her course work, and as she speaks, she flips her elbow-length blond hair from side to side, sending it flying farther afield, perhaps, than she’d intended.
The guy in the Bruno-Mars hat stops singing long enough to glower at her. “Could you PLEASE stop flipping your hair in my face!”
“Sorry,” she says. “But maybe you could stop SINGING.”
He’s right back at her. “I have no choice,” he says, leaning forward to include me in his frenzied glare. “Y’all are talking so loud I can’t concentrate on my book.”
There’s a hush in the surrounding seats, a collective breath holding.
In my experience, people on airplanes, especially those traveling between the West and the Midwest, prefer to avoid confrontation. Neither of my seatmates, however, appears ready to back down. Until …
“You do have a great voice,” the young woman mentions.
And just like that, he softens.
It seems that he graduated from the acclaimed music department at Indiana University. And—Oh, my gosh!—so did she. They know, or at least know of, some of the same people.
“I’m sorry for being so pissy,” he says. “I just had a terrible week.”
The flight attendant comes by, and our new friend offers to buy us a drink. The young woman wants water; I ask for a decaf.
As we continue talking, he makes a point of including me, of leaning forward to see me around the woman. Ah! I realize. That was the problem. He felt left out. We should have made it a three-way conversation from the start.
For the next two hours and fifteen minutes, we talk. Mostly the two of them talk. Occasionally I join in, and he’s always careful to include me. They talk about their boyfriends, about his job and her ex. He shows us a picture of himself posing with the Chippendales, and she scrolls to a video of herself and her partner doing the cha-cha in a ballroom dancing competition.
They exchange contact information. I give them my card so they can find my blog and my novel. If the flight had been a party, it would have been declared a success.
Afterwards, I wonder: Would they have had such a warm conversation if it hadn’t started with a little fight? Could it be that we need more conflict in our lives (minus guns, fists, and scalding cups of coffee, of course)?
Being a native of Western Washington, I’ve heard newcomers complain that Seattleites are polite to a fault, that, although we’re friendly on the surface, we’re actually cold or even passive-aggressive. Maybe what they mean is we try too hard to avoid an argument, even when a little dust-up might help open up the relationship. Who knows?
Conflict isn’t my preferred way to initiate a friendship, but I did learn something from the little fight on the plane. It’s best to introduce yourself promptly to both your seatmates. Otherwise, the passenger in the window seat might burst out singing and complain about hair flipping when all he really wants is to join the conversation.
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What an excellent post. Nothing like a compliment or humour to puncture an expanding balloon of conflict.
Hi Bluebee. Thanks for stopping by.
I love this post. a great perspective and a well-written story.
Thank you, Cynthia.
Ha- it sounded to me like you were brokering a date situation, Nicki, but you killed it with the announcement that he’s gay 🙁
It’s true, Jo, they were setting up a meeting–but it was a meeting of friends.
I once met a very friendly lady who offered me mango and some other exotic fruits she grew in her own gardens on a ferry. I was crossing lake Toba, leaving Samosir Island to go back to mainland. When we parted, she gave me a small basket filled with passion-fruits and tamarillos.
When I was a kid, I hitch a ride on a cart pulled by a water buffalo. I was visiting my maternal grandma in the countryside. The farmer who owned the cart gave me some sugar canes to chew on. It was super sweet!
I have never had any friendly experience in the plane or buses in urban areas!
😀
I like your two stories of friendly, generous people. They make me think of my dad, who liked to give little surprise gifts to strangers or acquaintances.
What a nice story! Used to the Chinese news of “people fight over their seats”, “woman throws boiling noodles at flight attendant” and the like, I was expecting a bad ending. I’m glad it was not like that.
I have to confess I never talk to anyone on planes. I’m scared they will talk too much, and I’m not a good talker. Once I made the mistake of letting the Chinese man sitting next to me that I could speak Chinese and he was talking non stop for 2 hours… too much for me!
I’m with you, Marta. It’s easier not to start the conversation that to stop once the faucets are on full blast!
What an interesting exchange. Thanks for a great share, Nicki.
I’m not sure that we need more “conflict” . . . but we do need more honesty, authenticity, integrity, and love.
Maybe that’s what got the conversation going. The fact that they dropped their “masks” and engaged in a real (if somewhat heated) exchange.
I always enjoy chatting with the folks who sit around me. However, it seems that most Taiwanese (including my husband) like to sleep during the longer flights. So, I am left to entertain myself with movies and other inflight entertainment. However, once we reach North American soil, most are amazed by the amount of time we have been traveling up to that point and most love hearing about my story of living in Taiwan.
I am glad that everything worked out for the best. I bet having a conversation with them made the time fly by and maybe they are reading this post and laughing about what happened on the plane that day.
I can’t sleep on a plane or concentrate on writing, so it’s either talk or read or do a quick Sudoku.
I hope the two unnamed passengers do read my post and approve of it. I said something about writing about the incident on my blog, and they sounded okay with it.
Great story, Nicki. Like you I think that people often act strangely and even rudely when they feel left out. Kids certainly do when they feel excluded from a game or a party. A smile and a light invitation to join the conversation can go a long way in a plane, subway, train and even in line. Actually I have been through quite similar situations that also ended up on a positive note. Again, great post.
Since you write children’s books, Evelyne, it’s interesting that you mention how kids feel when they’re excluded. Ever since one incident in my childhood, I’ve been aware of the danger of ignoring one person in a group.
Great story, Nicki! You hear so much about nasty confrontations on airplanes these days, it’s nice to hear a happy ending. Now I’m curious whether the two are single and if they’ll keep in touch.
They both have boyfriends, Jill, but neither is married. I think it’s quite possible they’ll keep in touch. But since the guy is gay, they won’t be dating.
Fun article!
Thank you, Sheila. It was fun to write.
By the way, nice job on the sketch!
Thank you, Barbara. I was a little worried about including the sketch. Cartoons aren’t as easy as they look.
Oh Nicki! I’m sorry, but this sounds like two spoiled children who narrowly averted a nasty scene caused by their own lack of basic manners. The hair-flinging is irritatingly common, and I’ve been subjected to it more than once on an airplane which is particularly awful when trying to eat a meal. And the singing in response to not being able to concentrate because you two dared to converse with one another and he felt left out? EGAD. What a baby! Sorry, I am feeling particularly curmudgeonly this morning….. you are evidently a much nicer person than your loyal reader!
Like most squabbles on a plane, there was undoubtedly a lack of manners. But they were both so likeable and warm that it was hard for me to feel anything but surprise and momentary apprehension. Besides, the happiness and good will in the aftermath made it all seem worthwhile.
Love this blog Nicki! Great insight into human behavior.
Thanks, Maureen. Who knows if my interpretation of the incident is correct? But that’s the way I saw it.
What a great story! Kudos to the middle seat for breaking what could have been an ugly flight. There is nothing like a sincere compliment to calm people down.
From the way she said it, I’m sure her compliment was sincere. It’s funny, because it didn’t dawn on me until she said something that he did indeed sing well.
Wow. So glad the fight turned into a friendly conversation. Your seat mate really showed grace.
I was on a flight where a drunk guy kept demanding drinks that the flight attendant refused to serve since he’d already had more than a few. He decided to get nasty, so one of the pilots marched back to coach and told the man he’d be arrested if he didn’t pipe down. We didn’t hear a peep out of him after that!
Alcohol often seems to be behind the problems on planes we hear about. I’d hate to be on a plane when a serious fight breaks out. There’s no place to go.