I’m from the south and have grown to take for granted the whole idea of southern charm. The northeast has helped me establish a new appreciation for charm.
I’ve been on several flights ranging from one to three hours, with all sorts of people sitting next to me. I usually am easy to talk to and can converse with the best of them. I can use my southern charm most of the time to warm up the people around me.
On a thirty minute flight to Boston, I failed.
The final doors closed and the flight was going to begin its taxi out of the gate. I was unfortunately stuck in the middle of a three person row. With a girl on one side and a Brit on the other, this trip was going to be a piece of cake.
The flight attendant had an eerie resemblance to Stan Lee but with a hint of orange due to bottles of fake tanning cream. He was pretty funny and said laid a few corny jokes on us before the instructional period of the flight began. It was a fun flight already.
I casually turned to the girl next to me, who was flipping the pages of her book with only her left ring finger to show off the glacier she was wearing, and asked why she was flying to Boston. A simple conversation starter, but the response was quite cold and caught me off guard.
“I’m from Boston,” she said. I proceed to say that’s pretty cool and was about to asked a follow-up question when her response was felt by everyone on the plane because of the arctic chill flowing from her seat.
“Not really,” she said with a flip of her hair. She then turned her entire body into the aisle while putting on both head phones.
My attempt for casual conversation was dodged by the coldest shoulder on earth.
Unaware of how to respond, I responded to her cold shoulder by… facing forward… I had nowhere to escape. Usually I could retreat to the window, but the Brit sitting next to me was watching a rerun of Reno 911 cackling louder than a pack of hyenas. He continued to watch his TV without acknowledging presence on his left.
So for thirty minutes I sat quietly between an iceberg and hyena, not what I expected from a short flight.
Southerners are given bad reputations for being ignorant but at least they know how to carry on a simple surface level conversation that’s all I’m asking for. I’m going to appreciate being back in the south.
Having said all of that, I loved Boston. A city I would recommend for anyone looking to take a trip. Boston is a wonderful place.
James Buce 