You know what ogged, some folks just have all the luck. I tell ya.
Now I don't feel so bad. I usually get the afraid-to-fly people sitting next to me. Or chatty Cathys when all I want to do is read or sleep.
Maybe there's some attractive airplane neighbor Karma at work.
That is what life is like, once I leave school and my youth behind me? Planes will become hookup joints? Reminds me of the opening scene from Unbreakable.
No, it's worse than that, because there's no hookup. Live it up while you can; there's no place like school.
I hope to god that isn't true, ogged, because if it is, I may as well die now.
Oh, it's true, and you're probably a goner, b-dub. But while school is your best chance, it's not your only chance, so hang in there.
You can't get any of those poor little ladies on that lonely campus to join you in the radio booth? Maybe the next time I'm in town Unf and I will work some Blog-eye for the Maroon guy magic.
I'll tell you all the weirdest part about the post-college hookup scene, a part that I surmise most of you haven't yet experienced. Between marriages, when I was single and unattached, opportunities were scarce. When I've been married, both the first time and the current one, I got hit on constantly. About half the time it was playful but ultimately safe, but the rest were quite serious and direct. By a wide margin, these were married co-workers.
If you want women to come on to you, get hitched. Of course, there are some pretty stark drawbacks to that strategy...
The interesting thing is that the observation applies to riding a Greyhound bus as well. I've never sat next to an attractive person on one.
However, the part about a good-looking person a few seats over (or anywhere on the bus) doesn't hold.
How odd that for that last comment my email came up as @uchicago.edu instead of @gmail.com.
The only woman I've been in the air studio with is an ex-girlfriend (ex at the time, that is). It is a measure of my woeful state that in four years I had two girlfriends, each for very brief periods, and nothing besides except missed opportunities.
I used to know someone who called me "b-wo".
I can't wait to be made over by a single bitchy lawyer and a man whose fiancée left him practically at the altar. (I kid because I love.)
GYBFW, etc.
I endorse A-po's comment: the opportunities are there when you can't take advantage. This has to be more than a confirmation bias, I swear it.
Can I help in the makeover?
Well, one strategy that I've yet to try is the following:
1. Fly Southwest (free seating).
2. Wait till almost everyone else has boarded. Then walk on board, visually scan the seats to identify hotties, then pick a seat right next to her.
Actually, yes. But I had to finagle it. I traded seats with the person sitting next to her so that person could sit with their family instead of behind them. You make your own luck.
Nothing came of it, of course.
In 1975 on a 13-hour flight to LA from London I was sitting next to Joan Juliet Buck, later editor of American Vogue, and at the time remarkably comely. You don't forget these things.
So nobody has yet offered this analysis:
"Yeah, there's always at least one really attractive person, but I'm never sitting next to them--the person next to me is."
So many threads!
Re A-po and F-labs: I've heard this from women too: they prefer guys who are taken, not just because they have at least some stamp of approval on them, but because, well, it's more fun to take the taken.
Labs, I think we couldn't do the makeover without you. Chicago or bust...
I want to note passer by's comment just to say, that's something I would never do. Yes, I'm prudish and too reserved, but I would feel entirely skeezy picking the seat next to the hottie.
Matt, I suppose the response is: "Wow, you must always fly in planes with at least three seats across."
And GYBFW??
What about Airplane II, it seemed like everyone and their donkey was sitting next to that blonde.
Ogged and I share a reluctance to take the seat next to the hottie, because, for some reason, it's imperative that I appear totally indifferent to having any human contact whatsoever.
I will, however, seethe with resentment when some obviously inferior guy takes the seat and chats up the attractive woman. "Some guys do nothing but complain..."
That's an important consideration. Also, though my female friends howl when I say this, I don't want to impose on anyone. Even if I took the seat, it's not as if I would speak.
The howling friends: I wish more guys would just talk to me, or be more forward...
Funny story: In grad school, there was a guy I didn't know well, but who I knew thought I was unduly aloof, and at some party he greeted me and stood next to me, and I started to get the sense that I was being tested, so I stood there too, and didn't say anything while minutes passed, and finally he just shook his head and walked away.
I guess I have the feeling that skeezy guys must always be trying to angle to sit next to the hottie, and she's sick of it, and I don't want to be that guy. The evidence of your howling female friends suggests perhaps that everyone thinks that, and the hotties are sick of it, so I should be not wanting to be the guy that I in fact am. It's tough.
"GYBFW" stands for "I forgot to put the 'O' in 'GYOBFW', which stands for "get your own blog, fuckwit". It was addressed to myself.
Never have.
I generally have the opinion that if women don't want me to be too intimidated to talk to them, they shouldn't be putting so much effort into making me attracted to them. This may make little sense, but I've never had a feeling that conflicted with it.
I've been romantically linked with six girls, between the ages of 18 and 23, and only one of them ever wore lipstick.
Women know what Type A guys want. If they don't want Type A guys, then don't be what they want.
OK, I've been on 16 planes in the last three weeks--I can't look at a pretzel anymore--and I have what would be the definitive statistical breakdown, if I'd bothered to take notes instead of making it up after the fact. (I hope that last bit will keep me from getting banned.)
Twice the person who would have been sitting next to me moved into the empty seat in the three-across when I showed up.
Once I sat in between an older and not strikingly attractive couple (who did not want to rearrange so they were next to each other).
Once I sat next to the male half of a couple with the female in the three-across.
Once I sat next to a high school boy traveling back from sort of school trip with a bunch of friends.
Once I sat next to a gray-bearded man whose attractiveness I feel unqualified to judge.
Eight times I sat next to no one. (Why so often? Some of the flights were pretty late, and several of the flights were on those planes with one seat on one side and two on the other.)
Once I sat next to a young male business type who was probably attractive to those who prefer males.
Once I sat next to a quite attractive female person.
Not so bad, on the whole, given that only half of all people are of my preferred gender and some of those are outside my age range. (Uh oh--that sounded kinda reasonable....)
Actually, the main reason for this post is that I need "I can't look at a pretzel anymore" to appear somewhere on the web, for reasons that will become apparent if you keep a weather eye on my own blog.
Are you kidding? Just this morning I identified an Old English character used by the OED in its etymology for "island" (it was a yogh) using nothing more than google and native intelligence.