Travel Pet Peeves: Seatmate Social Butterflies
You know how all the travel books say that the best part of vacationing is meeting new people? False. The very word "vacation" actually comes from the Latin, "vacare" meaning "to be free" and "ation" meaning "the bevy of idiots who make day-to-day existence a torturous, mind numbing trek through triviality and mediocrity." That's a fact. You can look it up.
We thought our post on the Five Unspoken Rules Of Seatmate Etiquette was pretty clear: "it's okay to exchange pleasantries with the person next to you ... but don't strain to keep the conversation going like you're on a date."
But this advice hasn't completely helped. On a recent flight, a Chatty Cathy actually physically gestured for us to take off our headphones and stop listening to music, so that she could personally enliven our in-flight experience with questions like "so what do you do?" It turns out that answering with "write about situations like this" is considered, in some cultures, rude.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying: please don't try to engage us in conversation. Just because the capricious will of the seat assignment algorithm ordained that we spend time in physical proximity doesn't mean we have to share anything more than air and the armrest.
The thing is, there's no way to have a worthwhile conversation on an airplane. No matter how effusive, the odds of a random stranger having anything interesting to say about the life of another random stranger is pretty rare. The ensuing talk is almost always forced, awkward and boring.
Yes, eschewing airplane chit chat means we risk missing that fabled once-in-a-lifetime connection while coming off like a grouch, but usually a simple smile and "hello" will do when sitting down, or an "excuse me" when accidentally knocking their elbow while changing the radio station on the armrest panel. No need to break out the pictures of the grandkids or detail your financial troubles; this is the sky, not show-and-tell.
[Photo: bjornmeansbear / Flickr]
Related Stories:
· Five Unspoken Rules Of Seatmate Etiquette [Jaunted]
· Airplanes Coverage [Jaunted]
· Bad Seatmates Coverage [Jaunted]
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