This sounds like a topic for a whole new thread.

If it was me, I'd just avoid the guy. Are you sure he's not flirting?

If it was someone I knew reasonably well, I might say something like, "Hey, do me a favor and give me about three inches, I get claustrophobic. Thanks man." And just leave it at that. My experience with potentially confrontational situations is, they can go either way. If you just act like it's casual and normal and shrug it off, the other person will tend to respond in kind. But then I'm not a guy, maybe it's different.

Can you clarify this arm thing? it sounds extremly weird to me.
You make it sound like he's really flirting with you. Try to just make some comments about a hot chick in your class or something along those lines to let him know your not gay. You could also try wording a light joke about what he's doing to let him know you don't like it while still keeping things positive. Just wondering, what do you do when he does that?

First of all, yes, this is a extremely unusual situation. Second, I'm 99.99% sure it's not flirting, which makes me think it's some sort of power move. He seems a bit insecure (the scent of one's own) making it a possibility, and extremely awkward when it's happening. Every time it has happened, I try to ignore it, but when he rocks his leg back in forth, it makes it a lot more difficult to just sit there and pretend nothing is happening. This is a more detailed account of what happens:

He moves his leg so it's touching mine. I shrug it off and keep my leg there. He pushes his leg further, so I am forced to choose between keeping my leg there or moving it. I figure: “if I move it, I'm letting him win” so I stay put and this continues for the rest of class. Oh man. I can now see why this seems like he's flirting. :lol:

Well, whatever is really going on, I think the answer has become clear. I'm just going to call him on it as soon as it happens the next time. But this makes me want to ask another question. When really is confrontation necessary? When will avoidance be a more appropriate action?

Thanks.

I think part of what I was trying to get at is there's a middle ground between confrontation and avoidance.

If you're like me and you're not necessarily used to interacting with people a lot, situations may seem like "confrontation" because it takes more nerve for you to work yourself up to it than someone else. But I'd strongly suggest finding the middle ground. Do you think the example I gave above is confrontational? The other thing is, unlike me, you're full of testosterone. That might tend to skew things towards the confrontational realm a bit (the other guy too, I guess). I don't think that means you have to get in a fight over something as stupid as some weirdo's knee, though. I should let the guys take over from there.

An example of what I was trying to say above - when I first started trying to talk to people at about age 18, it took so much energy for me to push through my own reserve that what I said would come out too intense a lot of the time and I think I actually scared people away. It really took years for me to find the balance between the extremes.