The identity of the passenger has been kept secret for privacy reasons. For that reason, she could not be contacted to confirm or deny Menzio's claim. All we have so far are Menzio's own words, possibly further distorted by the Washington Post, and his characterization of what others told him.
If she did come forward, I suspect that we would get a more nuanced and complete explanation for why she became suspicious of Menzio. There are already clues in Menzio's own account where he notes that he maintained a dismissive and non-committal attitude to her attempts at conversation, and remained locked with 'laser like' focus on his writing. In short, he was behaving in a strange and hostile manner.
Are you serious? If I notice someone focused and scribbling equations onto a piece of paper, I leave them the fuck alone so they can concentrate.
Also, since when has practicing mathematics on a plane become a "strange and hostile" activity? Would she have reported him if he was focused on a Sudoku puzzle?
Either way, the woman sounds like a genuinely disturbed and extremely paranoid person.
Most people have never experienced a desire to do a bunch of math. They don't get it. They don't understand the need to concentrate or why one might voluntarily subject oneself to math. It's strange behavior. For some people it is also intellectually threatening; people don't react well to things that could make them feel stupid.
She may also be used to having men nearly always willing to chat with her. The fact that he is unwilling is strange and possibly insulting.
She is likely an extrovert, and expects it of others. Social interaction is expected. She expects others to enjoy what she herself enjoys; why would you not? Of course people want to chat!
So now being an introvert, or just having to get work done is anti American activity? Simply because you are sitting next to me is not a valid reason to demand my attention and conversation, much less is my refusal to grant it a reason to accuse me of terrorism.
It is not a valid reason, but it is an effective reason. It may not be right, but it is real, and one ought to have strategies in place to ameliorate this phenomenon. Extroverts cannot understand why you don't want to talk.
As an extreme introvert myself, I have become used to being accused of rudeness, snobbery, hostility and general weirdness. Strangers and acquaintances become appreciably tense if I dare to produce a book, or abstract myself in thought.
The trick is to set such people at ease. Show goodwill, talk about the weather for fifteen seconds max, and then switch off. The irony is that if Guido Menzo had taken the trouble to explain what he was writing, with the appropriate nerdish enthusiasm, he would have been guaranteed to be left alone for the rest of the flight.
The irony is that if Guido Menzo had taken the trouble to explain what he was writing, with the appropriate nerdish enthusiasm, he would have been guaranteed to be left alone for the rest of the flight.
While I think this borders on victim-blaming, I can't help but smile broadly when I try to imagine the scene: woman with flight anxiety tries to connect with in-row neighbour, and unwittingly opens a can of algebraic worms, symbols and Greek letters.
he maintained a dismissive [..] attitude to her attempts at conversation [..] he was behaving in a strange and hostile manner.
I'm sorry, but if I'm trying to achieve something (whether reading, writing, or trying to get some sleep), I would definitely consider it hostile for a random stranger to keep trying to start a conversation with me.
Extroverts generally cannot understand why someone would not wish to talk. They feel insulted and threatened, and it makes them very anxious.
As an introvert myself, I find extroverts attempts to start a conversation to be intrusive and very tiring, so I have developed techniques to set them at ease. As I noted in another reply, Guido Menzio could have achieved perfect peace for the rest of the journey simply by attempting to explain, in minute technical detail, exactly what he was doing.
You also comment else where about Menzio's picture, where he wears a "Yasser Arafat" scarf. Another commenter has remarks on his hair and beard as well, claiming that the combination of Menzio's dress and hair tripped the alarms of the passenger that reported him. Based on Menzio's portrait, he looks like a bit of a hipster or one of the several colleagues I have that are too lazy to shave on a daily basis. His behaviour was probably best categorised as being rude.
The Washington Post article also says:
"Instead this quick-thinking traveler had Seen Something, and so she had Said Something. That Something she’d seen had been her seatmate’s cryptic notes, scrawled in a script she didn’t recognize."
And
"Menzio showed the authorities his calculations and was allowed to return to his seat, he told me by email."
Clearly these events may not have been reported perfectly accurately, but there is nothing to suggest that any of the actions were reasonable. Also serious question: I also don't understand how one mistakes calculus for the script of a foreign language. In my mind they do not look anything alike.
I suspect his fellow passenger's account would bear little resemblance to either the Washington Post's spin on events, or how Menzio himself chose to interpret the matter on his Facebook page.
Reading between the lines, it would appear that Guido Menzio was pointedly and gratuitously rude to his neighbor when she attempted to initiate friendly conversation. He responded to her questions with curt non-answers, and remained pointedly focused on his work. Overly talkative people can be severely annoying, but that did not justify Guido Menzio's overt rudeness to his neighbor. He could have saved a lot of trouble with a little diplomacy.
> I also don't understand how one mistakes calculus for the script of a foreign language.
From the Washington Post article, it appears that the woman complained to security that Guido Menzio was intensely doing math, so clearly she did not mistake a differential equation for 'terrorist writing'. It was not the math that unnerved her, but his behavior.
>You also comment else where about Menzio's picture, where he wears a "Yasser Arafat" scarf.
I was wrong about the "Yasser Arafat" scarf. The article doesn't suggest that he was wearing one at the time. Again, there is no indication that Menzio's appearance was the cause of the incident, but rather his behavior.
If every time an airplane returned to the gate when someone behaved rudely to a neighbor, it would never take off.
Have you considered the possibility he has a fear of flying and was using mathematics to take his mind off it, and he was desperately trying to fend off her disrupting his productively distracting train of thought? There's all sorts of very good reasons not to talk to strangers.
Nothing justifies Menzio's behavior, either on the plane or later on Facebook where he made outlandish claims and invoked Trump. He is completely obnoxious, and the author of his own misfortunes.
There is a narrative here, which appears at first very compelling, especially to readers of HN: gentle intellectual persecuted by hysterical ignoramus...
But the narrative gradually reveals holes and inconsistencies which makes it at best inconclusive, and in my considered opinion, strongly supports a radically different interpretation: Menzio behaved like a demented nut-job, terrified his fellow passenger, published a self-serving narrative on facebook which was picked up by the Washington Post and spun even further.
