I travel with a friend on occasion. We do not attempt to get seats together, sometimes we are lucky and get isle seats across from each other. We make no huge effort. Our thought is, as others have posted, we will see each other the whole trip, sitting together isn't important. More often than not, for at least one flight, we are on a red eye anyway, where we are both trying to get to sleep, not trying to converse with each other. So the only time I have sympathy with seating issues is by passengers who have children, who haven't booked early enough to secure seats together.