I was recently flying back from Rome with my boyfriend, and we had booked our tickets at the last minute so we couldn’t get seats together. It was our own fault and unfortunate, but it wasn’t the end of the world and we didn’t try to change our seats. We boarded the plane and waved to each other as we went down opposite aisles. My BF went to the back of the plane, and I was towards the front in an aisle seat in the middle row of the 777. People started boarding, and much to my happiness there was a normal-looking woman across the aisle from me, and a normal-looking middle aged Indian man in the seat beside mine and nobody smelled or was doing anything odd. The guy next to me and I had a brief, polite conversation as we waited to take off and then I put on the headphones and started watching movies. No problems whatsoever.
After the first movie, my BF comes up and finds me and tells me he’s sitting next to a germ factory who has been sneezing and coughing and has Kleenex piled on the seat between them. I felt bad for him, because I had such a good seating arrangement! He departs muttering about face masks, and the guy next to me makes a comment about sick people on planes being annoying. I agree. We chat briefly about sleeping on planes, and I comment that I’m not good at it, but since it’s the middle of the night I’m going to give it a try. Conversation ends. I pull my little inflatable travel pillow out, pull my hoodie over my head (you couldn’t pay me to use airline blankets and pillows), and manage to make my way to dreamland.
Exactly two hours later I wake to a very light breeze on my face, a knee pressed against mine, and a creepy feeling all over. I pop open my eyes – and there is the guy who formerly seemed normal sitting next me, with his face about 5 inches from mine, and he’s staring (and I mean STARING) soulfully into my eyes. The breeze was his breath on my face and our knees were touching because his body was turned towards mine. I pull back and I’m like, “What are you doing?” He goes, “You finally fell asleep! I had to use the bathroom, but I didn’t want to get up and disturb you because you looked so peaceful. So I waited patiently and have been sitting here admiring your great beauty” (and let me just say that I’m a pretty girl, but my face would definitely not launch a thousand ships). I’m thinking to myself, oh crap, I did not see this coming! Please let him stop talking!
No such luck. He goes on to tell me about how he has a wife in India, but she was ugly and so he spends lots of time in America and just loves American girls. He starts asking if I have a boyfriend (yes, the guy I was talking to), and do I love him (yes) and do I plan on marrying him (maybe), and am I attracted to older Indian men (not at this moment, no), and would I be up for random casual encounters, like joining the mile high club (hell no). I’m leaning backwards into the aisle at this point, and I tell him I’m not comfortable with this conversation and could we maybe pick a different topic. Finally the guy goes, “Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t even asked your name!” I did not want to give him my name, so I made one up, and got up and made a run for it. I trucked it to the back of the plane, raced through the galley and up the other side of the aisle to my BF. Sure enough, there’s a guy next to him honking snot into a Kleenex, with more piled on the seat between him and my BF, but I’m too creeped out to be disgusted. I tell my BF about my weirdo seatmate and that I’m moving pronto! I flag the flight attendant that walks by us and we tell him what happened and asked if I could relocate to a new seat somewhere, anywhere. He starts to point to the empty seat next to my BF like I’m a moron for not suggesting sitting there, then sees Kkleenex. Much to our amusement, he says very loudly, “Well, that’s disgusting! No one can sit there. You two are together? There’re two seats in business class – get your stuff and go! I’ll meet you up there.”
We finished the last half of our flight in business class with a couple of free mini bottles of wine for our troubles, and we gave the flight attendant one of the small boxes of chocolate we had been carrying back for kindly moving both of us (he could have just moved me and left my boyfriend where he was). Of course, three days later my BF came down with a bad cold, which I then caught. But at least I managed to avoid in-flight molestation.
Alex
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