Flight to Buenos Aires

So I was sitting in my window seat on my flight to Argentina, watching other passengers board and hoping that the cute blonde Brazilian girl who had been sitting opposite me in the departure lounge would be my company for the next 12 hours. Ideally, no one would be sitting there cause extra space > cute girl, no matter how attractive she is. But seeing that the flight appeared to be fairly full, if I´m going to have to share close quarters with someone, I´d prefer that they look and smell nice. Unfortunately for me, while I did get a Brazilian (hahaha), it was of the male middle-aged variety rather than someone who possessed the important qualities of T&A. On further reflection, this wasn´t the worst result. The guy was skinny, he didn´t smell, he let me have the central armrest, and didn´t attempt to talk to me. This got me thinking about my ideal neighbour on a long haul flight. There are several different factors that are important in determing whether or not I am going to enjoy....well not enjoy, but not completely hate.....having someone sitting uncomfortably close to me for a long period of time.

Gender
This is not as important as I would have first thought. Females are preferable because they are, on average, smaller and smell nicer than guys. Obviously, I´d much rather sit next to an odorless, small man than some sweaty 300 pound female behemoth who forgot to take her sponge bath. Even sitting next to an attractive female isn´t a particularly big drawcard. Best case scenario is some mild flirting and maybe an extra Facebook friend. Sneaking off to the bathroom and having crazy hot sex only happens in Playboy forums. I mean, airplane bathrooms are disgusting and cramped... What happens if, in the incredibly unlikely event that you do meet someone who is attractive enough and who wants to fornicate with you in the bathroom, that you find the previous occupant has just laid a massive smelly deuce? Do you go ahead and fuck? I can´t think of many things that are a bigger turn-off than the smell of feces....although, I guess some people do like that. But yeah....gender....not really that important.

Smell
This is pretty crucial. Having flown many times in China, I can tell you that people can get some spectacularly bad BO. I had an experience on a somewhat long (maybe 4 hour) flight from Zhuhai to Beijing, where a woman had BO so bad that the only way I could tolerate sitting next to her was to stick my nose under my t-shirt and inhale my own BO the whole way. Smelling your BO is like smelling your own farts, sure it doesn´t smell great, but at least your own farts don´t make you gag....well....at least mine don´t. But generally, women smells can range from good to disgusting and men range from inoffensive to disgusting. After 5 or 6 hours of a long haul flight, no one really smells good, but at least by that stage one´s nose has become accustomed to the collective stench of everyone couped up in the cabin.

Size
Fortunately for me, I´ve never sat next to an exceptionally fat person. I am told that it is a horrible, horrible experience. I´m all for making fat people buy an extra seat... They´d only use that extra money to stuff their porky faces anyway... So the only people who lose out are the ones in the food industry. Perhaps airlines should start charging fares based on the weight and mass of the customer. I´ve always thought that it is incredibly unfair for skinny people to have the same luggage allowance as big chubby people. This section could turn into an endless rant of me bagging obese (real obese not muscley BMI obese) people, so I´ll stop here. Fuck....I know I´m going to get a whale sitting next to me on my flight from LA to Seattle.... I´ve been warned about American domestic flights by a few people already.

Talkativity
When I get on a long haul flight, I just want it to be over. I want to close my eyes and turn my brain off and magically make the next 10 hours go by quick. Having someone talking to me disrupts this plan and forces me to try to be interesting and sociable. This is easy when the person I am talking to is interesting, intelligent, funny and/or has a cute smile. However, these characteristics apply to around 5% of the general population. Quite simply, I´m not particularly interested in talking to the overwhelming majority of people, and if I´m not interested, it´s a big fucking chore to have to do it for an extended period of time. It´s not as if you can tell them to shut it and then comfortably sit next to them for a half a day. It´s a little different on short flights where there is very limited time for someone to bore the fuck out of you, or in cases where you have brusquely rejected their attempts at interaction, have them glare daggers at you. I like sitting next to foreigners cause A) people from different cultures are interesting to some degree and if you have to talk to them, then at least there is some novelty there....B) if they don´t speak good English, they are less likely to initiate conversation....at least in my experience.

So weighing up all the factors, sitting beside the middle-aged Brazilian dude wasn´t too bad at all. I still would have preferred the Brazilian girl (given that she probably smelled better, wouldn´t have been talkative either and of course there´s always T&A), but wouldn´t have traded for a random draw of the other passengers on the plane.

Oh, I just thought of something......all this only applies to adults or nearly fully grown people. Kids and babies are horrible on flights. I hate them and their parents.... at least for the duration of the flight....but at most other times too...for most kids and babies anyway.....this doesn´t apply to the kids of my friends, who are wonderful little angels..... hehehe.... hehe.... he...... *sigh*

Oh yeah, and it only applies to travel in economy class too. If you are someone who flies first or business class and pays for it out of your own pocket, fuck you. Fly economy and donate the extra money to charity, you rich fuck.

Anyway, this post has degenerated somewhat and I´m afraid to see where it´ll end up if I continue.... So.... post over, bye.