I’ve been spending a lot of time in airports recently. And that means a lot of time waiting in airports with often little to do (mind you, I’m typing this while in an airport waiting area, but let’s ignore that fact because it doesn’t work with my narrative). So I observe. And I like to ‘study’ the way humans interact and relate to each other. By ‘study’ I mean watch and come up with theories I never have to challenge or research. Here’s one of them.
In airports in the USA with bench seats, there are predictable patterns to how people sit under certain circumstances. Failure to follow these rules results in scorn, ridicule, banishment to a dungeon or possibly just a dirty look. You see, we all know once inside the plane we will be sitting next to someone. Closely. So when we are outside of the plane, we want nothing to do with sitting next to someone (unless we know them, and even then it can be tricky if you are catching a 4am flight and are not yet awake). We have rules, unspoken rules, about where to sit. They look like this:
1 Person
With one person in a row the rule is pretty simple; they can sit where they please. Sometimes they will sit in the middle, but if they are considerate they sit on the end of the row so their bag doesn’t take up a seat. Yes, they will have a roller bag. Always. People without roller bags tend to stand. Hippies with backpacks lay on the floor. And kids never sit, at least not for more than a nanosecond. If they have a roller bag, they have a cell phone as depicted below.
2 People
The two person configuration is not much different.
And So On Until The Row Is ‘Full’
Overfull
Most people are happy with the above configuration. Most consider the row full and no one else should sit there. But if a ‘newbie’ traveler comes along and actually wants to rest his feet before getting on a flight, the most often chosen spot is seat #7. This is because the open adjacent seat allows for bag storage out of the general legroom area.
Overfull Exception
This is, of course, unless one of the passengers happens to be an attractive woman.
Power Option
Given the Overfull scenario…
…we now throw in a power pole, always located in the center of a row.
In this scenario, even the most introvert, anti-social, mobile device toting geek amongst us will ask the other passengers to please move their bags so he may suck from the life giving teat.
That is, again, of course, unless there is an attractive woman in the row. In which case most geeks will forgo power for proximity to someone who smells pretty, even if they know they have zero chance of talking to her.
This leaves a clear space open for another geek to gain some power, nearly filling the row.
When Standing Close Is Not Okay
If we take our Full scenario above and in saunters someone who doesn’t want to sit, but instead stands close, this would be most disliked by the rightful sitters.
No one likes to be stood close to when they are sitting, even with a one seat buffer.
When Standing Close Is Okay
However, standing close suddenly becomes socially acceptable if you are recharging something and there is not a seat available.
I don’t know why this is. I think it is because we feel like people have to have a reason to stand close to us. Charging a phone? That’s okay. Eating a burger. Not okay.
The Troubles Couples Have
It’s time for a pop quiz because this little cartoon game just got serious. A couple enters the waiting area. The seating is as such. Where would they sit and in which configuration (woman on left or man on left)?
I know. It’s not easy. Two seats here and two seats there. I’ll give you a moment more to think about it.
Done?
The correct configuration is:
The reasoning is thus: The gentleman would not want his lady friend having to sit too close to the geek, knowing that she would become uncomfortable as the geek slowly leaned closer and closer to her, lured by her natural charm, while continuing to watch X-Men 12: The Final Mutation on his phone. Thus, being a considerate gentleman, he takes the seat closest to the geek (a ‘geek block’ if you will) while allowing his lady friend (thanks to Melanie for the phrase) to avoid sitting close to people, especially geeks.
If he’s not the considerate type, the configuration would end up like this.
He’s happy because he gets to catch up with friends on Facebook telling them how awesome his trip is going to be. She’s quite unhappy because not only is he ignoring her, having picked this set of seats so he can charge his phone rather than getting her a seat with some elbow room, she also has to sit next to the guy in seat #8 who seems a little too happy. He’s freaking me out too and I’m the one who drew him.
Beyond this, chaos reigns. More people show up and no one is happy, but we slog through it, this time we have around strangers.
The funny thing is, if we get to our destination and mosey up to the local watering hole only to find the same situation, we won’t hesitate to grab a seat next to anyone for a chance to drink a beer. I guess it all comes down to motivation.
I have spent way too much in time airports and have considered this seating configuration at length (admittedly at far too much length than is sane). I have never once considered the attractive woman facet. Perhaps because I’m not looking to sit next to one.
The bar scenario makes total sense. We are mostly drunk there. We only wish we were drunk while we wait for the plane.
You’re around geeks too often to notice when they are sitting too close to you in an airport, I suppose.
Really, in my world, the lady would get to charge her phone or laptop, whichever needed the most tending-to. And if he was considerate, he would have offered that to her first. (I know, if you had put that scenario in, it would have been just too long.) But otherwise, totally on the mark and very funny!
Oh, I considered other scenarios but yes, it would have been fairly long. There was a family of three with a 2 year old. There was the phalanx of luggage created by the family of 5 who knew they only needed three seats because the teenagers didn’t want to sit with their parents and instead went to Starbucks. There was the obnoxious loud-talker on a cell phone with his requisite 2 seat buffer on all sides. And on and on and on.
I was assuming the woman in this case wasn’t fool enough to let her battery run down right before a flight, like the guy obviously did. :)
cool one, I had noticed something similar on the way people take places in trains; and related it to the way the electrons take their places while building up atoms always looking for the “less crowded place” but I cannot think the way to add the female factor there.
another nice thing to look at is people at elevators, where do they look to and what do they say … if they dare.
Female electrons are the hardest ones to figure out.