Why I Can't Trust Anyone Who Likes the Middle Seat on a Plane

I was boarding a flight to Denver (I iterally flew from Florida to Denver for a 2hr meeting and flew back...) when I witnessed something that fundamentally challenged my understanding of human psychology.

A man in his forties, well-dressed and appearing mentally sound, was arguing with a gate agent. Not about delays or lost luggage or the usual air travel frustrations. He was requesting to be moved FROM an aisle seat TO a middle seat.

I stood there, watching this unfold, and felt the same existential confusion I'd experience if someone told me they preferred root canals to massages.

The middle seat is aviation's cruelest joke. It's the compromise nobody wants, the consolation prize of air travel, the seating equivalent of being the third wheel on a date. You get no armrest sovereignty, no window view, no easy bathroom access. You're wedged between two strangers who are both secretly annoyed that you exist while simultaneously using you as a human barrier to avoid acknowledging each other's presence.

Yet this man actively wanted to be there. And ever since witnessing this aberration, I've become convinced that people who prefer middle seats are fundamentally different from the rest of us, and not in ways that inspire confidence.

Think about the psychology required to prefer the middle seat. You have to actively enjoy having your personal space invaded from both sides. You need to find comfort in being compressed between two people who are trying to expand into your already limited territory. You must derive satisfaction from negotiating armrest sharing with people you've never met and will likely never see again.

This suggests a level of comfort with chaos and confinement that makes me question your decision-making in other areas of life. If you can't recognize the obvious superiority of window seats (view, wall to lean against, control over window shade) or aisle seats (legroom, easy escape, bathroom access without climbing over humans), what other clearly hierarchical situations do you misjudge?

Are you the person who prefers the broken escalator to the working one? Do you choose the longest line at the grocery store because you enjoy the wait? When offered a choice between a comfortable chair and a folding chair, do you go with the folding chair for the "authentic experience"?

I've started paying attention to middle seat volunteers during flights, and they exhibit other concerning behaviors. They're inevitably the people who try to make conversation during takeoff, as if being compressed between strangers has awakened some social instinct the rest of us have learned to suppress at 30,000 feet. They act like the middle seat is an opportunity for human connection rather than a necessary evil to be endured with minimal interaction.

Middle seat people also tend to be overly accommodating in ways that suggest poor boundary-setting abilities. When the person in the window seat wants to get up for the third time in an hour, middle seat volunteers cheerfully stand up and move aside. When the aisle seat person spreads into their space, they just accept it with a smile. This isn't kindness, it's an inability to advocate for yourself in basic situations.

In business meetings, these are probably the people who agree to unreasonable deadlines without pushback. In restaurants, they're the ones who accept the table next to the kitchen when better tables are clearly available. They've confused being accommodating with being wise, when really they're just demonstrating that they don't understand how to evaluate and pursue optimal outcomes.

There's also something unsettling about people who claim to enjoy objectively unpleasant experiences. It suggests either a fundamental disconnect from their own preferences or a performative contrarianism that's somehow even worse. Are you genuinely more comfortable in the middle seat, or are you just trying to demonstrate how evolved and undemanding you are?

Because if it's the latter, if you're choosing middle seats to signal your spiritual superiority over us shallow, comfort-seeking window and aisle people, then you're not just making poor seating choices, you're making poor character choices.

The middle seat preference also indicates a troubling lack of strategic thinking. Air travel is basically a series of small decisions that can significantly impact your comfort over several hours. Choosing to minimize that comfort suggests you either don't understand the stakes or don't value your own well-being appropriately.

These are not the people I want making important decisions about anything that affects me. If you can't optimize something as straightforward as airplane seating, why would I trust your judgment on complex professional projects, financial decisions, or restaurant recommendations?

I realize this might seem like an overreaction to a seating preference, but I think our choices in small, low-stakes situations reveal important truths about how we approach larger challenges. The person who actively chooses the middle seat is the same person who probably accepts the first salary offer without negotiating, parks in the worst available spot to avoid walking an extra minute to find a better one, and orders the same thing at restaurants to avoid the "stress" of making decisions.

So if you're a middle seat person reading this, I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm just saying I need to understand your reasoning before I can fully trust your judgment on matters of consequence.

And if your reasoning is "I genuinely find the middle seat more comfortable," then I respect your honesty while quietly questioning everything else you've ever told me about your preferences.

Or maybe that I'm just an air travel snob...