Dating like airplanes

4 Real-Life Stories of Couples Who Met on Airplanes (See? It Is Possible!)

I recently matched with the perfect guy on Bumble. For those of you not navigating modern dating's location-based app scene, the best way to describe the experience is the running of the bulls in Pamplona: You're doing this crazy thing that could potentially give you the thrill of your life, hundreds of strangers are in the mix with you, and you're just trying your damn best to avoid getting horned in the ass by a bull. He was handsome in a sweet-faced, '90s-grunge-model way, intelligent, successful, and very tall—an American Prince William , if you will. Annoyingly, it turned out APW American Prince William; I'm settling on this did not actually live near me in Los Angeles; he had popped up in my queue while he was in town visiting his brother. Damn, close with his family, too! By the time he asked me out, he had already left town—so I agreed to buy a plane ticket and fly hundreds of miles to meet him for a first date. I've dubbed them Jordan, Mike, Jamba, and Hamby. Believe me, I've wondered that, too. First, let me offer a little context: I'm 33, single, and have one of the most incredible dating records ever. Legendarily disastrous.

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Why do cramped seats, gross food, and no personal space make us think of … romance? When Rosey Blair witnessed two people flirting in nearby seats on a flight, she decided to document their fledgling romance on Instagram and Twitter. She eavesdropped on their conversation, sharing it with her followers, and even snapped a picture of the two exchanging family photos. Her initial tweet got more than , retweets, and what could have been a passing observation transformed into a viral sensation — one that was criticized for being invasive and creepy. But an attractive single person sitting in the airplane seat next to me?

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We all know that the holidays are the busiest travel time of the year, so if you're already going to be at the airport, why don't you do some multitasking and use it to meet your next romantic fling? Meeting someone special on a plane is rare enough to be the stuff of fantasy yet just commonplace enough that nearly everyone knows someone who found sparks with a seatmate at 30, feet. Here are some real-life tales of strangers on a plane turning into lovers on the ground. A flight attendant had asked me to move from my assigned seat to allow an elderly couple to sit together.

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Block Plane Dating

Seventy years ago, the Yale sociologist John Ellsworth Jr. Though the internet allows us to connect with people across the globe near instantly, dating apps like Tinder prioritize showing us nearby matches, the assumption being the best date is the one we can meet up with as quickly as possible with little inconvenience. A year and a half ago, I was 23, single, and working as an engineer at the online-dating site OkCupid. The site held a similar philosophy when it came to distance, and we employees would sometimes joke we needed to add a special filter for New Yorkers that let them specify, Show me matches under 10 miles, but nobody from New Jersey.

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