Psychological Turbulence

I hate sitting still for long periods of time. Other things I hate include: crying children, slimy food and being forced to make small talk with boring and/or creepy people. Now combine all of these and you have the recipe for my personal hell.

This also happens to be the recipe for Royal Jordanian flights from Amman to North America.

A few weeks ago, I packed my bags, went to the airport and boarded a flight to New York. Predictably, as soon as the plane took off, the man in front of me reclined his seat all the way back and – as if on cue – the child behind me began kicking my seat repeatedly. Meanwhile, the obese man on my left nervously looked out the window and started practising heavy breathing exercises. As the folds of flesh hanging out over his armrest heaved up and down with his breath, I slowly inched away, pressing myself against the other side of the chair.

So there I sat: armrest digging into my side, trying to block out the beginnings of a loud theological debate between two bearded men across the aisle. And that was just the start of my fourteen hours of misery.

Then it occurred to me. Objectively, the actual flight experience is not that bad. But cram hundreds of people together in a confined space for a few hours and you automatically amplify every one of their annoying traits. The real reason these flights get under my skin is that they are a caricature of everything that irritates me about the Arab character. Here are a few examples:

Annoying trait #1: Invasion of personal space

My nervous neighbour took this one literally when he squeezed me into a corner of my seat. But even more irritating is the insistence on having prolonged, invasive conversations with whoever happens to be sitting next to you. What does my father do for a living? Where is my family originally from?

There is certainly no shortage of such busybodies in the Arab world. These are the people who try to marry you off to their third cousin within five minutes of meeting you. The ones who think business meetings are an appropriate time to relate their life story in excruciating detail. Yes, these are the people who turn your daily social interactions into an awkward cringe fest.

Annoying trait #2: Overvaluing your own opinion

If your fellow Arab travellers aren't talking directly to you, they will still make sure you can hear them. You might not care about their opinion, but they will make sure you hear it anyway. Like the men on my flight imposing their religious debate on everyone in the vicinity. These people remind me of watching the Al-Jazeera current affairs debate show, "Al-Ra'i Al-Akhar". The viewer never quite figures out the participants' viewpoints because they are shouting over each other the whole time. (Although to be fair, if I didn't think so highly of my own opinion, I wouldn't be writing this blog).

Annoying trait #3:  "What’s mine is yours" (especially if it is my problem)

At some point during the flight, a woman handed her very young baby to the stranger sitting next to her. "Can you take care of him?" she asked rhetorically, not even waiting for an answer before she walked off to the bathroom. It is not the first time I have seen someone do this on a flight. But it is definitely something I have only seen Arabs do. On the plus side, this kind of behaviour is probably a by-product of Arabs' strong sense of community. I can even see how some might consider it a good thing. Unless you're the guy left awkwardly holding a snotty crying baby.

Years of experience have led me to the conclusion that the best coping strategy on these flights is to bury my face into a book and pretend that none of these people exist. If only there was a way to do that in everyday life.