I've found the secret to a happy relationship: an ‘airport divorce'
So vastly different were our approaches to flying that an 'airport divorce' — that is, parting ways after passing through security and reconvening an hour or so later on the plane — felt like the optimal outcome for both of us.
There were certain things we agreed upon, mostly to do with pre-flight planning. After years of time-maximising by taking early-morning and late-evening flights, we're now committed middle-of-the-day flyers. And we both reckon it's sensible to arrive a couple of hours before departure.
It's when we get past the bag scanners and snake through duty free that the friction begins. 'I'm just going to have a look here,' said Morwenna in the smellies area at Alicante airport last month. I shuffled along behind her. She handled a moisturiser for a few seconds then returned it. And again. A third time. 'Are you just going to pick objects up then put them back down for half an hour?' I asked. 'Yes,' she said, 'that's what I like doing at the airport.' And that was the fateful moment we chose to part company and link up later on the plane.
A British Airways survey from a couple of years ago found that more than half of travellers claim to 'adopt a new personality' within the hectic, anxiety-inducing tinderbox that is the airport. I think both Morwenna and I fall into this camp. To look at things within the framework of type A/B personality theory, in non-airport life I'd argue that, like most people, we both sit somewhere between A (organised, think time management is sexy) and B (relaxed, susceptible to being late). At the airport we transmute, werewolf-like, into unrecognisable beings. I amp up my neurotic type A side; Morwenna leans into her laid-back type B persona (all the more difficult to comprehend because in the real world she is five minutes early for everything). We are not our best, balanced selves.
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What this means in practice is that, before the gate number is announced, I like to sit somewhere with a direct view of a departures board (if that's Wetherspoons then all the better), so I am ready to leap up and half-walk, half-run in the right direction. Morwenna, on the other hand, is well aware that the plane isn't really going to start boarding 45 minutes before departure. So she browses. And browses. Taking pleasure in her only real responsibility in that moment: being to make it onto the plane and challenging herself to be the last on board. At the gate I like to be in line relatively early, both to soothe my anxiety over missing the flight and to secure a spot for my cabin bag. Not Morwenna. Our mutual travel history is a series of episodes involving me repeating, 'Shall we get in the queue then?' and her responding '… but why?'
So on that journey back from Alicante, she did her thing, I did mine. She perused the tins of olives and anchovies; I knocked back an Estrella and scanned the flight information board. I was anxious on her behalf. We gave each other nasty looks across the gate while I queued and she lounged. But aside from that … it was a much less fraught experience all round.
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Some couples say a 'sleep divorce' is the secret to a happy relationship. I'd say it's splitting up at the airport.
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