AITA for elbowing the person sitting next to me, intentionally, on a 13 hour flight?
Apologies for any typos, Reddit on my phone isn’t very format friendly.
Hi. I’m a 23 year old female presenting person who travels alone, primarily. I recently travelled abroad to New Zealand, my first time on an overnight flight, and the way there was all fine and dandy. I’m currently sitting, infuriated, on my 13 hour flight back. We’re 10 hours in and I want to throw hands.
The man next to me is easily 50 years old, and the first thing I noticed about him was his smell. Like, he reeks. He smells like a beef stick, and I wish I was exaggerating. Anyways, he sits down and points at me, then sort of rolls his eyes and goes, “guess we’ll all need to get up if you need to get up, huh?” I’m in the window seat, but I don’t get up often, and I simply laughed and told him that. He didn’t find it amusing.
Two hours or so later, I noticed that he’s spilling out of his seat. Man has grown so comfortable in his seat he’s now letting his arms lean over the rests into my seat and the aisle lady’s seat, who keeps shooting him dirty looks. I decide I’ve had enough and I need to use the restroom before I try to sleep (spoilers, I didn’t), so I politely tell him I have to get up, and stand. He glares at me and looks over at the other woman next to him and goes, “guess we’ll all have to get up now.” He repeat this!! Two times! Because no one responds to him.
He follows me down to the bathroom area and stands in line (I can only assume to use the bathroom, right?) no. He looks at me when I come out and goes, “gee, finally.” And walks back to the seat as I do.
I manage to get comfortable, but at this point I’m leaning on the window to get out of this man’s arm hair. He really isn’t giving any caution to how he is sitting, and I’ve had it. I’m not normally picky, but I’m skinny and 5’0 tall – I’m not taking up that much space in the seat. I shouldn’t be rubbing thighs with this strange man who keeps looking at me.
Every time a service lady would come down to ask us about food or drinks, they’d look to me first and ask me, but he’d raise his hand and interrupt me. Every. Time. I can’t make this up.
Finally, I’m sitting here ready to doze off, and this man puts his had on my thigh. So I did what any rational woman would do and I nudged him. I elbowed the fuck out of his arm and cleared my throat, to which he scoffed and instead wrapped his arm around my arm rest and decided to lean more into my seat. I can’t attach images, but holy shit is he taking up half of my seat. I can’t be the only one thinking that this is absurd? He’s fully in my space and touching me, and I’ve got 3 more hours to deal with this stinker.