Duck, Duck, Goose.

Those are the words going through my head as I consider where to sit each morning. The inner dialog goes something like this: "No, too skinny. No, too friendly. No, too girly and prone to cell phone chatter.... Oh, yes. Here's a perfect specimen. Just large and foreboding enough with a gigantic American Tourister firmly planted in the middle seat."

The strategy for a morning seat is simple: You want the largest, most unappealling person possible on the 3-seater side. That way, the two of you can sit on either end and no one will dare sit between you two.

This is a little counter-intuitive, so it took me a couple weeks to figure this out. After all, we spend our entire adult lives seeking out the most agreeable-looking people possible to sit next to. We want the ones who are unlikely to impose on us in any way. That all goes out the window the moment you start commuting. Fat and sweaty? Perfect! Asleep, drooling and taking up two seats? I'll take it! Scary and slightly twitchy with visible tatoos on the neck? Dude, we're neighbors!