I always choose an aisle seat when possible. Obviously, if I'm in economy class, I hope to get a row where the middle seat is empty. That's what everyone wants, I think. I recall reading once that when airlines conduct customer satisfaction surveys, the #1 factor as to whether an aisle/window customer enjoyed the flight is whether the middle seat next to them was empty.

But twice within the last year, I have had a situation where there was only one other person in my 3 seat row, but the dude actually sat in the middle seat next to me rather than sit by the window. Allow me to explain.

Incident #1. About six months ago. I'm on a short flight of about an hour in length. I don't remember where, but I'm pretty sure I was out of the country. I board the plane and take my aisle seat. A dude sits in the middle. No problem. Yet. He was probably unlucky enough to get the middle seat and he is just sitting in his assigned seat and assuming the window seat will be occupied.

Everybody boards. The door closes. I wait for him to move over. He doesn't.

The plane taxis. The plane takes off. We reach crusing altitude. So he moves over, right? No. He sits in the middle seat next to me for the entire flight. Should I have said "What the hell is wrong with you, move over to the window, you freak!?" Perhaps I should have. I didn't.

Incident #2. A week ago. Bangkok to Phnom Penh. A one hour flight. I'm in the aisle, a young foreign guy is in the window seat. He's got bad B.O., which I get a whiff of, but it's bearable because I have that middle seat buffer.

Anyway, Mr. B.O. uses his laptop during the flight. Then the guy in the window seat ahead of him reclines, squeezing his space. What does he do? You guessed it. He slinks his rather smelly body into the middle seat next to me so that he can use his laptop. Should I have said "Whoa, buddy, get back over to the window seat"? I didn't.

If I were a chick, I would swear that these foreign dudes who deliberately sit next to me in middle seats were perverts who were getting some kind of excitement from it. But I don't think that's the case. I just think these guys don't have the American healthy aversion to proximity to other humans.

Has anyone else ever experienced these creepy unnecessary middle seat users, and have you ever confronted them about it? Or do you think their conduct was perfectly reasonable?