Plane Talk

[marcusmarcusrc]

Poll: Under what conditions do you talk to the person sitting next to you on a plane?

1) Always. Especially if it annoys them.
2) Usually. I meet interesting people this way.
3) Only if they are cute.
4) Rarely. Too shy.
5) Never. I put on sound-canceling headphones, bury myself in a book, and glare at anyone who looks like they are even thinking about bothering me.

Just wondering, because I had long conversations with my seat-neighbor both to and from Miami. On the way there I met a commodities trader. He and I had an overlapping interest in the future of natural gas prices. On the way back, I met a woman who works on user interfaces for productivity enhancement tools at GE. In other trips I've met everything from a Seventh Day Adventist to a nuclear missile silo technicians, from a blind woman with a really cool computer setup on her way to lobby Congress to a kid traveling from his dad's house to his mom's house, from a guy who sang next to VEG at their ward's choir to a prefrosh visiting MIT. My mom always had the superpower of being able to extract life stories 5 minutes after she bumps into a stranger in a supermarket or a street corner. I seem have a lesser version of this talent that mostly only works in planes.

Comments

[shumashi.livejournal.com]

A cross between 4 and 5. I'm not too shy, but I'm a fairly self-entertaining person, so I usually use plane trips as a chance to get some reading done or play on my laptop or something.

[76trombones.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that. But with a bit more shyness.

(Oh, and on those crazy BOS-OAK/SFO round trips I've been doing, mostly I just want to sleep on the plane. I'm pretty clear on where the interesting conversation is to be found, or has been found...)

[jencallisto]

how 'bout "sometimes, depends on my mood and the person in question." i'm often open to having at least some amount of conversation with people, but i don't usually initiate it unless i'm in an especially gregarious mood or something specific about them sparks my interest.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

ditto, although since I've moved back to Boston, I don't fly nearly as much.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

4) I'm sufficiently uncomfortable on planes (not from flying, I like flying, but the seats, the noise, the humidity, etc.) that I like to read as much as possible to block everything out. I don't even try to watch the movie.

What's your secret? How do you get conversation started and what sort of questions do you ask?

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

On this last trip, the commodities trader actually started the conversation because he saw me going through the slides from my talk and he asked me about them. And once we started talking, we ended up talking about everything from Canadian health care to his kids' educations to how the Chicago Exchange as a grain market in the 19th century.

The GE person was putting away a passport, so I asked if she was coming back from someplace interesting. If I'd gotten a 2 word answer, I would have nodded and pulled out my book. Instead, I got a long answer about Phuket and the neat reserve of rescued gibbons that she'd visited, etc. etc. that indicated a desire for conversation. (she'd also been traveling for 20+ hours at that point, so I think she was looking for new ways to distract herself)

Usually on a several hour flight there are a couple opportunities for a "hook" and then I gauge whether or not the person was just answering to be polite or if they actually want to talk. And a surprising number of people seem to fall into the "want to talk" category.

Mind you, I also probably do a lot of traveling between conferences, weddings, and visiting family, so while I accumulate a lot of stories about people I've sat next to, I also read a rather large numbers of books and do a lot of sleeping during my travels as well. (And really, I can usually manage to read a book _and_ have a long conversation _and_ take a nap all on the same flight)

[bluesnapdragon.livejournal.com]

4. i'm very shy around new people. usually i smile at them and then go quickly back to my book/nap, in case they thought it was weird of me to smile.

[jadia.livejournal.com]

I'm a #5. I don't mind talking to my seatmates but I had some bad experiences where he/she would *not* stop talking to me despite several not-so-subtle hints I wanted to sleep/read. So I am too paranoid now. Especially on a long plane trip, if someone's like that, it can be hell.

[aerynne.livejournal.com]

Only if they are cute or look interesting. The problem is *ceasing* the conversation if they turn out not to be. You know?

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

So far, I've never found anyone that I didn't find at least somewhat interesting.

I do try to make sure to be sensitive to hints that the person I'm talking to doesn't want to continue the conversation.

[avacon.livejournal.com]

It depends on my mood and the person. I think it breaks down such that
I don't say any more than "hello", "thank you", "excuse me", etc to people
on a little over half the flights that I take. On most of the rest I'll have
around 5-10 minutes of conversation, generally inspired by something
(like problems with the plane, a book they're reading, etc). Once in awhile,
but rarely, I'll make a connection with someone and we'll have an extended conversation.

[remcat.livejournal.com]

Somewhere around 1.1. I nearly always talk to people I sit next to. Silence seems weird.

[ilai]

Between 4 and 5. I'm shy enough that if the other person isn't someone like your mom, the conversation would fall back to awkward silence.

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

I try to look friendly during the getting into your seats part, and also try to remember to tell them that they should not hesitate to wake me up if I fall asleep and trap them in the window seat. It's really hard for me to maintain consciousness on planes. I was sort of excited last time I flew on Song to try their pick-you-own playlist thing, but by the time I'd picked some stuff out and started listening, I ended up asleep and only hearing a few songs.

[dcltdw]

heeheehee :)

(ok, maybe that's only really funny to me :) )

[dcltdw]

3 is definitely a motivator. Whether I act on it depends if I overcome 4.

Also, because I am usually uncomfy in airplane seats, oftentimes, I just try to pass out.

I think I also tend to assume that people have better things to do than to talk to me, but that might just be justification of 4. I think the few times I've chatted a bit with people, the conversation has gone pleasantly for a few minutes and then we've turned to something else.

Then there was one time flying into Logan in a lot of turbulence where the woman next to me was a total basket case and was hanging on to my arm. I didn't mind (no, she wasn't my type); mostly, it felt unusual (not bad or anything) to suddenly be projecting the Strong Reassuring Guy mode. It's also one of the few times I've consciously kept continuously talking.

[tanatoes.livejournal.com]

I'm in the never catagory. In general I don't like to talk to strangers. Not because I don't see tham as complete beings in their own right but because I can't be bothered to form a whole mental image of them, fit them into my world view and find some means to interact if I'm never going to see them again.

Of course, working in retail I have to deal with strangers constantly.. and it doesn't help that I have no memory for faces whatsoever. It's slightly embarrasing the third time I ask somebody if I can help them find anything because I don't realize I have already talked to them.