Inflight entertainment

I want to make this fair. I don’t want to just complain about the weird stuff that happened to me. I’ll tell the other side of the story. I take responsibility for how weird this one became.

In late 2013, I took a trip to Jakarta with some friends. We spent the weekend in Jakarta- went to some bars, ate some good food, rode a bajaj and on the last day took part in the classic Jakarta activities- malls and traffic jams.

Lyndee, Bethany and I spent our final afternoon in GI. We planned to check out Forever 21 and then get a taxi directly to the airport and fly back to Surabaya. We allowed plenty of time for the trip to the airport. For those who don’t know, traffic in Jakarta is CRAZY. Actually, Jakarta was recently officially named as the city with the worst traffic in the world. And it certainly lives up to that title. Jakarta is the kind of city that could probably drive me crazy if I stayed long enough. The longest I have ever stayed was about 5 days. I was staying with a friend’s family, doing a lot of fun things, not really having many responsibilities and pretty much just chilling out. But because of that amazing Jakarta traffic, I felt super stressed.

As I was saying, our trip from GI to the airport took a lot longer than we thought it would.  It got to the point that I was certain that we would miss our flight. The traffic was so bad that we were barely moving at all. In the end, we were lucky (if you can call it that) that our flight was delayed and we arrived with enough time to wait around in the airport before flying. You can always rely on a flight out Jakarta to be delayed at least.The biggest disadvantage of checking in to the flight so late was that we couldn't sit together. Lyndee and Bethany were seated near the front of the plane and I sat by myself all the way at the back of the plane. It wasn't really the end of the world though as the flight only takes an hour and a half anyway.

When it was time to board I sat in my seat at the back of the plane. I had no one to talk to and I had already read the AirAsia magazine. I began looking around. There was a young guy sitting next to me. He was probably in his early 20’s and I noticed that he was very tall. I didn't get his name so let’s just call him tall guy. I’m a little shy with talking to new people but I decided to try to talk to him anyway. “Dari mana?” (where are you from) I asked him. He looked at me with a very confused expression and didn't say anything. “Dari Surabaya atau Jakarta?” I asked. “Jakarta” he replied. That was as far as the conversation went.

Soon, the airplane took off and the fasten seat belt sign was switched off and I could listen to my iPod rather than trying to converse with the tall guy from Jakarta who didn't seem to want to be my friend. Not too long into the flight tall guy moved his leg closer to mine. Our legs touched. It was kind of weird. I know planes are kind of cramped and small but it didn't seem normal that our legs were touching. I moved my leg. A minute later, I realised our legs were touching again and moved my leg again. This was weird. When it happened a third time soon after, I started to think that maybe it was deliberate. I was kind of creeped out but also not 100% sure that he was doing it on purpose. I decided to test it. I tempted fate by deliberately moving my leg closer to his. It wasn't long before our legs were touching. I realised I needed to take things to the next level. I put my arm on the chair underneath the arm rest, fairly close to tall boy’s arm. Soon after, he moved his arm and our arms were touching. I moved my arm away. This was weird. He was acting very strangely and I didn't really know what to do. Eventually, I decided that I needed to take control of the weird situation and try to out-weird tall guy. I figured that if I was even weirder than this weird guy, then it wouldn't feel so strange (somehow). I moved my arm close to his again. Slowly I slid my hand closer and closer until my hand was on top of his. He didn't say or do anything. He just kept his hand in the same position.Next, I started gently stroking his hand. He responded by turning his hand around so his palm was facing upwards and stroking my hand. He still said nothing. So, rather than letting him gain control of the weird situation I closed my hand and held his hand.

At that point in my life, I had never flown anywhere with a boyfriend so I had never experienced hand holding on an airplane. The idea of it seems nice though. Holding hands with a stranger on a plane however was not something I saw coming and I can’t really tell you if it felt nice or just weird. Tall guy held my hand right back and we stayed in that position. My hand started to get sweaty but I kept holding his hand. By now, it felt like a competition. If I let go, I felt he would have out-weirded me and won. So I just sat there for an hour holding a stranger's hand. He never said another word to me and I just looked straight ahead.

When we landed in Surabaya, I finally let go of his hand to undo my seat belt. I wasn't sure what would happen but I decided not to say anything because my earlier attempt at making conversation with him was awkward enough. So, I stood up, looked at tall guy, gave him a quick nod and turned, walked away and continued with my life. 

I don’t know who won the weirdness competition or if there was ever any competition at all. I am not suggesting that anyone attempts to hold hands with a stranger but I am glad that I followed through with what felt important to me at the time.

Thank you guys for reading my last post, it got way more views than I expected. I really appreciate it. I'm still working on the story about my trip to Palembang. Hopefully, I will be able to post that soon too. Thank you so much for reading. :)