plane etiquette

i know the middle seat is hard. you do a dance for the armrests, your head lolls about when you try to sleep, you have to both climb over and be climbed over. i sympathize. i also sympathize with anxious flyers as i am rarely not thinking about crashing or who's pressure-breathing-mask-thing i'd have to help them put on or who left their cell phones on and will therefore force our plane to land on water.

i reserve my seats months in advance because i like the window as it provides something to lean against. i like to nap on my left side so i was distressed that i wound up napping on my right, but hey, i can be flexible.

BUT.

i sat next to an anxious-middle-seat flyer on sunday. she decided that the best way to deal with her anxiety was to compulsively stare out the window, which i would totally get except that it was pitch black outside. so unless she found comfort in staring to the dark abyss, i can't see the point of it. since i was in the window seat, it basically felt like she was staring at my left side the whole 4 hours. while the left side IS my good side, it was disconcerting. so i'd sneak angry glances at her and she'd go back to read two sentences of the same page of her magazine she was looking at when we took off. then, two seconds later she'd be leaning into me to stare again.

i needed to sleep so i leaned against the window. she leaned forward, craning her neck to continue staring. i'd shift and she'd get panicky and jerk about trying to see out the window (through my head and pillow), occasionally peeking to the other side of the plane before swinging back around to bore holes into my head.

i'll admit, i started to fuck with her. i squirmed and shifted and leaned to look out myself. I fluffed my pillow, stretched my arms, shifted some more. if she had just asked to switch seats or made an effort to not be such a freak i would've stayed cool.

sorry. i know you hate flying but damn woman, stop fucking staring at me.