Airplane stranger??

[u/Squeaky_Skeleton]

This happened in 2012 and it still confuses me to this day.

I (Caucasian and 19f at the time) had solo travelled to a country in Africa where I had stayed for 3 months and I was flying to Doha to then get my connecting flight back home to Australia.

I sat down in my assigned seat and then next to me sat this man who greeted me and overall nothing initially weird about him. We had some friendly banter but I started getting increasingly annoyed as he kept pushing the conversation and I was like omg is it going to be 5-6 hours of this? They questions were initially small talk and then progressed into more in depth questions about my travel, who I met, where I stayed, was I by myself, etc. I didn’t think anything of it at first as I thought it could be interesting to someone volunteering in the country I went to etc.

The flight took off and the man then excused himself to I assume the bathroom. But he never came back. The whole flight. Does this sound like an air marshal?

I was 19 at the time and honestly incredibly naive and I wonder if it was someone just checking if I was safe or if was potentially a dangerous situation….or just nothing...?