Have you ever gotten the feeling that you were standing in the way of true love? I mean quite literally, that you were a physical wall in the path of true love?

While attending one of my numerous (and enormously entertaining) classes with my juniors, my choice of seating, which normally serves me well, let me down. As is usual, being one of only two seniors sitting in on this particular class, most of the junior kids would gather around with their friends and mostly leave an empty seat of two on either side of seniors, so unless there's a whole group of seniors taking the class, you're on your own. Unfortunately, on this occasion, I had only one seat empty to my right and two empty ones to my left. Ten minutes into the class, a trio of students burst into the class, distributing aromatic rolls and finally settling down to the only three seats in the back row that were unoccupied, i.e. to my left and right. Unfortunately one of the trio, a strapping young lad chose the seat on my left while one of the remaining two ladies took a seat to my right and immediately invaded my armrest space. Muttering "ruddy baboons" and other such disgruntlements under my breath, I made myself as comfortable as I could without an armrest while the newcomers settled in and quietened down.

All went well until I noticed that the gentleman to my left could not go three seconds without sneaking a peek at the lady to my right. She, in turn, saw it necessary to exchange cliched barbs with him every few seconds ("How can you mind, you don't have a mind!" "Am I supposed to care, loser?") the likes of which it took all my inner resolve to not roll my eyes at. I contented myself with leaning forward to be able to immerse myself in the subject matter being displayed on the board. After about fifteen minutes of ignoring the two, I noticed that both, in order to exchange gestures that were apparently so amusing that it made both start giggling simultaneously, had started to lean forwards to be able to see each other around my leaning self. Idiot on the left was so intent on catching Ms. Right's eye that his seat was nearly tipping over with his efforts to lean to the front. Sighing, I gave up and leaned back on my own seat to give the two space to converse. Their conversation was worse than the giggles and eventually I asked Ms. Right if she would like to trade seats and freely converse with Mr. Left (and leave me out of it). Thankfully she accepted and I was able to continue concentrating on what was going on with the course material.