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It’s a tricky thing being single at the airport. Not only is there no one expecting your call when you land or automatically there to pick you up or drop you off, but you fall prey to the evil airport crush (the cute boy or girl sitting next to you on the plane who smiles at you and says hello when you sit down). Maybe they even make polite chit chat until the fasten seat belt sign goes on and the planes takes off and you’re left alone to stare and fantasize.
This is the danger of the moderate length of a domestic flight, but an international flight is a whole other animal.
Days go by in what seems like minutes, relationships are started and ended, and people are forced to get close quick.
Due to these exaggerated circumstances, international flights carry an even greater danger than the airport crush: the airplane boyfriend.
On my recent flight to Australia, I was ensnared by such a man; and for the sake of this column, and my dear readers, I pushed aside my better judgment and went ahead with this transcontinental tryst to see what exactly would become of it.
Things started well enough as we tried to keep one another from falling asleep before our first meal. Questions about our trips and schools blended with general factoids created reasons for us to keep talking. By the time our meals arrived, three hours in to the flight, I was bequeathing him cutlery and he was offering me his key lime pie.
Then came the time for us to sleep (it was 2:30 a.m.), and along with it, the trouble. I noticed my airplane boyfriend, Jacob, was holding my hand. “How sweet,” I thought. “He knows I can’t stand flying, and he’s holding my hand to help me sleep.” Cue the swelling violins.
A few minutes later, I felt him pull me in closer to him, and still attempting sleep, I allowed it. But when I felt hands on my face and his attempt to steal a kiss as I “slept,” I had a sinking suspicion that Jacob had gone from airplane boyfriend to airplane pervert.
I flopped my head to the other side of my headrest in an over-dramatized fit of sleep and managed to get some rest for a few more hours.
When I awoke, Jacob’s smile was so sincere and his voice so reassuring that I thought perhaps I had misjudged him. I allowed him to take my hand again as I watched some TV on my seatback screen, feeling pretty good about myself. I had snagged a man who was cute, kind and funny.
Things couldn’t have been going better, but when you’re 30,000 feet in the air you know you have to come down at some point.
I was in the middle of enjoying my show when I felt hands in my lap. Eager hands. Jacob’s hands. Stealing a peck is one thing, trying to fondle me at this high altitude is quite another. I tried to keep it cool and not embarrass him, brushing his hands off. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen in the cabin or Jacob was just plain dumb, but I eventually had to go to the bathroom to get some peace.
When I returned, he was in conversation with his friend on the other side of him, and I took the opportunity to put down his arm rest, the airplane equivalent of divorce papers.
So there we sat, two awkward exes, back to making lame small talk and stupid jokes until we landed at my final destination. I exited, as he stayed onboard, waiting to begin the next leg of his journey, and perhaps to fall in love for another small moment.
