Cake (pie!) or death?

Matt is probably both the truest single serving friend I've ever had and the least single-serving single serving friend I've ever had - all at the same time. Like you do.

We were sitting next to each other on a flight from London to Chicago. Now as a general rule, when traveling solo I make a conscious decision to either be in SSF mode or not. This is out of necessity because I find that if you sit down next to someone and that golden window passes during which it is natural and socially acceptable to start chit-chatting, beginning a conversation becomes exponentially more awkward as each minute passes.

On this particular flight I was tired and not at all enthused about leaving the UK and returning to work. On the way over I had a lovely SSF to pass the time, but on the return journey all I really wanted to do was watch me some movies. So I settled in to my seat, took note of the nice-looking guy next to me, smiled briefly to prove that I wasn't mean, and put my headphones on.

We then proceeded to sit next to each other in silence, watching the same dumb romantic comedy.

After the movie, I started thumbing through the handy in-flight entertainment guide, and lucky for me, Matt chose to ignore the enormous accumulation of awkwardness sitting between us and strike up a conversation. We bonded over travel, and food, and movies, and books, and mostly over Eddie Izzard.

The conversation lasted the whole flight, through immigration and customs, all the way to his connecting flight back to DC (yes, we were going to the same place, though sadly not on the same flight...).

And it's still going!