Originally Posted by ajGoes

What would you do? I'm a late-middle-aged man. I was in a middle seat. A young woman sat in the aisle seat and immediately started chatting. I soon knew she was a college senior being flown to grad-school interviews at the universities' expense. I happen to be conversant in a field close to hers, so we could have an intelligent conversation.

After a while, she got absorbed in her work and I started watching a video. At some point I fumbled a bit with the armrest to find the "recline" button. She noticed me fumbling and, very cluelessly, proceeded to raise the armrest. I'm small, she was small, so I didn't have to do anything to avoid touching her. I thought it was kind of charmingly naive on her part, but now I'm wondering whether I should have found a way to point out that she might not want to do that when seated next to an older man she didn't know.

Any thoughts?