A few minutes before landing, I decided to help the man beside me with his love life. We had barely spoken during a fifteen-hour flight, but apparently that was enough time for me to become his dating consultant.
He was an older gentleman traveling alone. Throughout the flight, I had noticed him chatting with our flight attendant whenever she brought him a Coke or something else. She would come by, they would talk, and I would quietly assemble a theory from my neighboring seat.
I had no idea whether he was flirting. Friendly conversation does happen without anyone trying to get a phone number. But by the end of the flight, I was in a good mood, and the idea of making a small joke seemed more appealing than continuing our very successful arrangement of mostly not talking.
After the flight attendant walked away for the last time, I leaned into the role I had just appointed myself to. I whispered that he should ask for her number.
It was meant as a light nudge. He had been talking to her; I had noticed. That was the full extent of my research. I hadn't spoken to him long enough to know anything useful about him, but I had already moved on to suggesting his next move.
He looked at me without saying anything.
That silence caught me off guard. The joke had needed very little from him: a laugh, perhaps, or an ordinary dismissal. Instead, I was left with my suggestion still sitting between us. Naturally, I decided the missing ingredient was another assumption.
I asked whether he was single. Then I explained that I had figured he was, because he was traveling alone.
There it was, my supporting evidence. One passenger, one seat, no visible companion. I had turned a seating arrangement into a relationship status and offered it to him as clarification.
He answered with the fact I was missing: he was a Catholic priest.
