I hope you and your buddies talked loudly across him and passed things back and forth with annoying frequency.
The NY Times had a whole article about people refusing to change seats these days. Some have paid extra for a seat, and others took time to reserve them well in advance. Most, however, are just dicks.
I was flying back from Phoenix with my lovely wife and 3 small children. We had reserved seats together months in advance. When we got to the airport, however, we were scattered all over the plane. Our 2-year-old and 4-year-old were by themselves. The airline, which we shall call Airline X (even though their real name is USAir), was completely unhelpful and told us we had to deal with it on the plane. The stewardesses were then pissed at the gate agents for passing the problem off on them. Fortunately, the passengers were very gracious, and we were able to get each kid next to a grown up. If we had encountered some of the jerks from the NY Times article, it would have been a bad scene.