I was on a flight to attend an annual convention happening on the other side of the country with two of my senior colleagues. The entire flight practically consisted of people in the same industry. My colleagues were busy greeting people as we were walking along the airplane aisle to get to our seats.

At any rate, a woman in early thirties was sitting in my seat. She was wearing oversized sunglasses along with a pair of studio headphones over her head. Moreover, she rested her hands neatly on her lap and had her head tilted back on the headrest as if to suggest that she was asleep and not to be disturbed. Give me a break, half of the plane hadn’t finished boarding by this point.

She ignored several of my initial verbal attempts at getting her attention. She ignored half a dozen gentle taps on her shoulder. When she finally “awakened”, I tried explaining to her that she was in my seat. But her response was to point at her headphones, then shrugging with both her hands upturned to gesture that she couldn’t hear what I was saying.

“You could try taking them off?”. Nothing, still playing dumb with no intention to take off her headphones.
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He continued:

Not giving up, I then showed her my boarding pass, pointing at the printed seat number. She then mouthed “ohhhh” as if she just understood what I’ve been saying all along. She then tucked in her knees half an inch into the seat and gestured for me to squeeze past.

I raised my voice and said out loud that “I’m not the one getting in, you are!” She flinched and slid to the window seat without a word. The guy who was waiting behind me in the aisle gave me a thumbs up as he passed by.

I thought that was that, but she was apparently still salty and wanted satisfaction. Just after takeoff, to my shock, I felt her tapping on my shoulder, saying she was open to switching seats with me “If I wanted.” I politely declined, albeit with an almost amused look in my face.

Later, I was casually conversing with my colleagues seated across from me in their aisle seats. She tapped on my shoulders again and said that her offer extended to “your friends”. I gave a light chuckle and said, “Sure.” I knew what she was getting at along with her condescension; that she was “someone in the industry”.

She later circled back on this, whether if I’d asked my colleagues about their seat yet, to which I replied in the negative. She asked “If I could please ask them” to which I’d always reply in the positive, “Sure” in a lighthearted manner. This exact exchange occurred between us not once, not twice, but thrice in the course of a 6-hour flight.

To this day, I’ve never come across her professionally, so I’m not sure what exactly she was trying to achieve there.