The first time Krystina Burton met Gabriel Solberg, she rolled her eyes. 

Burton, a then 30-year-old dancer living and working in Los Angeles, was waiting at JFK to fly home following an audition in New York. It was early in the morning. The terminal was mostly empty, so she had a row of seats to herself. 

When a man plonked his bag on the floor and sat right next to her, Burton was irritated. 

This was Solberg, then 34 and on his way back from visiting family in Europe. Bleary-eyed from an airport overnight layover, he was paying little attention to his surroundings.

“This guy doesn’t have spatial awareness,” Burton recalls thinking. The two strangers were sitting so close that Burton could see the seat number printed on Solberg’s plane ticket. She realized he had the plane seat next to her, and internally groaned. She wasn’t in the mood to spend six hours sat with someone who didn’t understand the concept of personal space. 

This was July 2018. Reflecting on the moment now, Solberg is quick to defend himself, and remembers things slightly differently.

“That’s her perspective,” he tells CNN Travel, laughing. “When I went to that terminal, it was packed, it was full of people, and I just grabbed a chair that was empty. I only sat there for like five minutes.”

Burton says Solberg only sat down briefly because he jumped up the minute boarding was announced, only confirming her suspicions about his arrogant nature.

“I know that since we’re sitting next to each other, we must be in the same boarding group. But he’s already escaped, and he boarded the flight with a random group,” Burton tells CNN Travel.

When Burton eventually boarded the Alaska Airlines flight and saw Solberg already settled in their row, she tried to put her headphones in quickly, to avoid any conversation.

“But I’m not fast enough, so he immediately engages me.”

Solberg hadn’t really noticed Burton in the terminal, but he spotted her as soon as she boarded the flight, walked up the aisle and approached his row. 

He says he was blown away by her smile, and then something twigged.

“Hey, weren’t you sitting next to me in the terminal?” he said, grinning.”You were sitting next to me,” responded Burton, still smiling. 

Burton’s first impression of Solberg as arrogant and self-centered melted away, and the two started chatting.

“I feel like the banter was immediate,” Burton recalls now. “As soon as I got on the plane and was getting to my seat, I feel like it just changed — there was no annoyance.”