Is it better to be small when traveling?

I'm 5'4" about 140-145, which often serves as a great advantage when I want to fly ... my legs aren't nearly as constrained by the seat back in front of me and I think I'm quite able to be very considerate of my fellow passengers next to me.

But my last flight has me wondering it'd be better if I was larger because perhaps people wouldn't feel so self-righteous in taking advantage of me ...

My 11p.m. flight from Los Angeles to New York—JFK sucked. I got stuck next to this large-ish dude, who was incredibly inconsiderate. as it was he had problems being "confined" to the dimensions of his seat—he wasn't HUGE, but just big enough, ya know? He's sitting middle, and I'm window and his daughter is sitting aisle.

Well, the first thing I notice is that he's not that considerate as he gently elbows me, while he's shifting around, and doesn't apologize. not a giant problem at this point, but ya know, when one's about to take a Red Eye, this isn't the best of signs. then I notice that he's also got Old Man breath ... yikes!

He falls asleep pretty quickly, and he's just barely spilling over into my seat area. not a big whoop, but still ...

Well, a little while later he shifts wakes up and shifts his weight and turns his legs to lean toward me (not his daughter for some reason) and I've got one of his fat legs entirely in my legroom and one of his fat arms draped over the arm rest into my space. I'm am pressing myself against the cabin wall. At this point, I don't give a shit if I bump him while using the DVD player on my computer or if my computer is "too bright." (Not that I really cared about that before.)

After watching the final three episodes of Season 1 of Veronica Mars, I decide that I want to get some sleep but given that I have about 2/3 of a seat on this 757, I am kinda um shall we say unsuccessful. Well, it's not that late for a vampire like me, so I plug in my iPod and it's not that big a deal ...

... Until he decides to wake up and take off his suit jacket, which he had inexplicably been wearing the entire time. This time he clocks me in the head with his elbow—not hard, but hard enough to expect a pretty strong apology that oh, btw, never fucking came. Then he stretches by doing arm circles that poison the air with his armpit odor. YAY!!!!!!

At least he shifts his weight again so I've got more of MY OWN leg room again, but his arm stays draped and I stay screwed. For fuck's sake!!!!!

Ultimately I got about 15 minutes sleep from 11 p.m. PDT until 6:45 a.m. PDT. I did manage to fall asleep almost immediately on my flight from JFK to Buffalo and accumulated a grand totaly of about 40 minutes from Los Angeles to Buffalo, by which it was 8:30 a.m. PDT. I sacked out for a good two-plus hours upon getting to my parents' house.