Maybe his eye sight was going bad.
Maybe he was just that tired. After all, it was an early flight.
Maybe his gold chain necklace was cutting off blood flow to his brain.
Either way, the “old man creeper” (OMC) that sat next to meet on my recent flight home on an unfortunately small aircraft, made the blog which means, he said something really stupid. Here’s how it went down.
I was flying out of Denver Tuesday morning at a blistering 8:00AM, which means that I had to wake up at 4:30AM. Now I am a morning person and I know that I am obnoxiously chatting at sun-up, but even I have my limits.
As I boarded the plane to make my way to Austin (aka home) I prayed “Lord, please let me sit next to someone interesting.”
Oops.
As I took my aisle seat, the eyes of an older gentleman gazed up at me and held my glance.
Huh… not what I had in mind Lord; I was hoping for a younger model.
He pulled out his earphone, “Hey, how’s it going.”
Oh no, he’s a talker.
“Fine, thank you.” I replied as dryly and politely as possible.
Let me help you envision this winner. Picture this: Grey hair slicked back; button down shirt with too many buttons not doing their job; gold watch, gold bracelet, gold wedding ring complete with diamond, and a gold chain necklace that looked tangled in… well … connect the dots. The icing on this inglorious cake was his overstuffed leather jacket.
As he took up most of the arm rest, he started to fiddle with his collar. I glanced over.
“Wow… it is warm in here, or is it just sitting next to you?” *insert creepy smile*
*blank stare* Please God tell me I hallucinated.
“Um well,” I stammered, “We have yet to take off so the air hasn’t kicked on.” I reached up to mess with the AC nozzle, contemplating throwing an elbow in the way of his nose by “accident.”
“Oh, I thought it was just sitting next to you.” *insert same creepy smile*
Holy crap! Repeating? Really? I’m not old enough to be deaf, thank you very much!
I had no choice but to chuckle to myself as I started flipping through my magazine to drop the hint that I wasn’t interested in men his age because I preferred my purse as an accessory as opposed to his oxygen tank.
Needless to say, the rest of the flight was smooth and quiet. Moral of the story: be careful what you pray for. God has a sense of humor too.
Learning as I go... 
Your being older would probably not have made him look any more attractive to you; I say that because I am older, and I would have reacted much as you did!
I thought of trying to suggest some things you might have said by way of witnessing to him, but I gave it up. I learned long ago that I really shouldn’t force the issue. If God provides an opening, then I try to be ready to walk into it, but a creepy smile–? Eeuuh!
I am a 21 year old guy and I work at a grocery store and I have an OMC also. One day while I was outside, this old man who looked to be in his mid 80s approached me. He looked familiar as I feel like he may have been the same man who approached me a few months previous. I was gathering up the grocery carts to bring them inside and this man felt the need to walk and stand close to me but at the time I did not think too much about it because I figured he wanted to talk, and maybe he couldn’t hear himself if he were not standing close. Then he proceeded to ask me if I was out of high school, which again didn’t seem like an odd question because I am asked that all the time, and I told him I was. And please let me also mention that I do not look 21, everyone says I look 15 or 16. Then he kept looking at me, and said, “Do you like the outdoors?” I said, “Yeah kind of. But I don’t go out much”. Then there was a moment of silence and he says, “My wife is sick. Would you want to go cook out with me one day?” By then, I was terrified and couldn’t speak, so I said, “I don’t know” in a way that he might pick up as a “No” and he says, “Come on now, I am a really good guy” and then by that point we were already half way into the store. And I just didn’t say a word. After that happened, I’ve been terrified of every old man that comes into the store. It dawned on me after it happened why he had asked if I was out of high school. If I appear to look 15 to everyone, he probably wanted to know if it was legal to hit on me. I have no idea. I am also not the kind of guy who can just tell him to “fuck off” and sorry for my language on your blog, I just don’t have the ability to say that to someone, I just don’t want to be mean, no matter how creepy they’re being towards me. And then after this happened, I realized he was the same man who asked me to carry out his groceries for him one time, and then how after that, he approached me, and wanted to shake my hand thanking me for being so kind. And then a few months later, he gets creepy. Ugh, now I know why he wanted to shake my hand. He wanted to touch me. And now I have a new rule, anyone who comes into the store that I don’t know and wants to shake my hand, well I now have a “Sorry, I do not shake hands rule”. Hoping to forget about him and the odd occurrence, I tried to move on, being very careful of the old men who I encounter and now when any old guy is nice to me, I wonder if they’re secretly plotting to rape me, or worse kidnap me. A few days ago, I was bagging this person’s groceries and for some reason I felt the need to turn and look to my right, and there he was. Standing in the frozen foods section looking RIGHT AT ME. I freaked out and turned back around hoping he’d leave. And inside the store up front, near the office, there is a bench, and he sat on the bench, creepy fuck. So I didn’t walk down that way at all and waited for him to leave. Like I understand how you feel about OMC’s.