We're accustomed to two extremes: the gregarious seatmate who talks through the whole flight, and the one who has his eyes closed from the start. Most of us prefer the latter, but we may be cheating ourselves out of a business contact or an interesting story.

In my opinion, here's the best greeting to use to help find that middle ground:

Hi. Nice sitting with you. Would you mind giving me five minutes about you, then we can each read/work/listen to music/sleep, having had our lives enriched by knowing another interesting person.

You never know, you may wish you had a longer flight.

Spend five minutes talking to your seatmate - Airplane tip originally appeared on Gadling on Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.