For several minutes, the man behind me didn't move.
He sat with his shoulders held rigidly, looking toward the seat in front of him.
His headphones rested around his neck.
His shoes were on his feet again.
I noticed that detail because I had spent so much of the flight noticing the opposite.
The woman beside me waited until the flight attendant had disappeared toward the galley.
Then she turned to me.
"All right," she whispered. "You promised."
I glanced at her.
She nodded toward the man.
"What did you do while he was asleep?"
I looked down at my hands.
The truth was less dramatic than the scene his reaction had created.
It was a small act, planned in the quiet space between two seats.
I hadn't shouted at him.
I hadn't touched him.
I hadn't called him names.
I had simply arranged things so that the behavior he had treated as harmless would no longer remain a private inconvenience for me alone.
I explained the plan in a low voice.
The woman listened without interrupting.
Her eyes widened as I described what I had done.
Then she pressed her fingers against her lips.
"Oh, wow."
I gave a small shrug.
"I know."
She glanced toward the aisle, where the passenger who had laughed was now watching his movie again.
"That explains why he looked so shocked."
I nodded.
For a moment, we both sat quietly.
Then she asked, "Do you think you went too far?"
The question caught me off guard.
I had expected her to laugh again.
Instead, she was looking at me seriously.
I considered my answer.
"I don't know."
She waited.
"I didn't want to hurt him," I continued. "I just wanted him to understand that he couldn't keep treating people like that."
She looked toward the man.
"Well, he certainly understands that something happened."
I smiled faintly.
That much was obvious.
But I wasn't sure whether he understood the reason.
There was a difference between feeling embarrassed and recognizing that you had behaved badly.
One could happen without the other.
I had spent enough time around people to know that.
The man behind me might spend the rest of the day furious at me.
He might tell himself that I had humiliated him for no reason.
He might even forget the part where he had refused to move his foot.
I couldn't control that.
Still, I found myself hoping that he would remember at least one thing.
When someone asked him to stop making them uncomfortable, he should listen.
The woman beside me closed her book.
"You know what bothers me most?" she asked.
"What?"
"He acted like you were being unreasonable for even asking."
I nodded.
"That was the part that got to me too."
She shook her head.
"Some people really don't hear themselves."
I looked toward the man's row.
He was still staring ahead.
I wondered whether he could hear us.
I hoped he couldn't.
I didn't want to turn the situation into a conversation about him for the rest of the flight.
We had already given it enough attention.
The woman returned to her book.
I leaned back and closed my eyes.
This time, I was genuinely tired.
The earlier tension had left me with a dull ache across my shoulders.
I let my head rest against the seat.
For a while, I thought about nothing in particular.
Then the man's voice came from behind me.
"Unbelievable."
He hadn't spoken directly to us.
He might have been talking to himself.
He might have been trying to make sure we heard him.
I kept my eyes closed.
A moment later, I heard the faint rustle of his headphones.
He put them on.
The music began again, just loud enough for me to hear a thin, distant rhythm whenever the cabin noise softened.
I was tempted to turn around.
I didn't.
There was nothing left to say.
The woman beside me looked at me once, then faced forward.
We both chose silence.
It felt different from the silence at the beginning of the flight.
Earlier, I had been quiet because I didn't want to cause trouble.
Now, I was quiet because I had said what needed to be said.
I couldn't make the man agree with me.
I couldn't force him to feel ashamed.
And I couldn't guarantee that he would behave differently the next time he traveled.
All I could do was decide how much more of my attention I wanted to give him.
The answer was very little.
A flight attendant passed through the cabin again.
She checked the overhead bins and asked a passenger to move a bag that had slipped partly into the aisle.
When she reached our row, she glanced toward the man's seat.
He was sitting normally now.
Both feet were on the floor.
She gave a small nod and continued.
I found myself grateful for that simple gesture.
It meant the immediate problem had ended.
No more toes near my elbow.
No more arguments about shared space.
No more waiting for the next accidental brush against my sleeve.
I could finally sit in the seat I had paid for.
The woman beside me turned another page.
After a few minutes, she leaned toward me again.
"I hope he learned something."
I looked at the window.
"So do I."
She waited, perhaps expecting me to add something.
I didn't.
The truth was that I wasn't certain a person like him would learn anything from being embarrassed.
He might simply become more careful about where he put his feet when other people could see him.
That would be an improvement, but not quite the same thing.
Good manners shouldn't depend on the risk of getting caught.
I had to admit that my own plan wasn't a perfect answer to the problem.
I had reacted to his behavior in a way that I hoped would make him feel what I had felt.
There was satisfaction in that.
There was also something uncomfortable about it.
I could understand both sides of my own reaction without pretending they canceled each other out.
The woman beside me seemed to sense that I was thinking too much.
She nudged my arm lightly.
"Don't look so serious. You got your armrest back."
I laughed.
That was true.
And it was enough for the moment.
I settled into my seat.
The armrest felt cool beneath my elbow.
A small, ordinary comfort.
I had no idea whether the man behind me would apologize.
I wasn't waiting for one.
I didn't need him to admit that I had been right before I could recognize that my request had been reasonable.
For the rest of that stretch of the flight, we kept to ourselves.
The woman read.
I watched the clouds.
The man listened to his music.
And for once, everyone stayed in their own space.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: The Flight Continued as Though Nothing Had Happened, but I Couldn’t Stop Thinking About the Difference Between Courtesy and Fear
Four Hours Into a Crowded Flight, I Discovered That the Man Behind Me Had Decided My Armrest Belonged to Him
Part 6 of 8
