Many people, including myself, have already declared we are only completing one contract. After our five months onboard, we will all return to our separate lives back home, or we will start anew. Having a set deadline can be nerve-wracking if you don't know how to begin the next chapter of your life. We've all been stuck in jobs we one day hope to escape, but we don't always know when exactly we will pack up and leave. But with this line of work, I know the precise date when this portion of my life will end. Depending on how attached you've become to your friends and the job, this knowledge can be either frightening or liberating.
With the exception of management and lifers, the turnover rate on ships is extremely high. Hardly anyone sticks around here too long, and this dramatically alters the general perception of friendships onboard. The epitome of these fleeting relationships is a fuck buddy.
For five months, you can totally reinvent your persona without worrying about future consequences. This is precisely why many men shack up with women they have no intention of dating outside the ship. Even married men, whose spouses remain ignorant at home, have mistresses who are sometimes aware their boy-toy has a wife and kids. I attribute this casual attitude toward sex to be the combined result of a stressful environment and an enclosed, limited population.
Just like in high school, everyone knows who's taken and who's single. Couples kiss in the crew mess and hold hands on Route 66, the main hallway everyone takes to get from their rooms to work. Nothing goes unnoticed here. Before I came onboard, the training specialist warned us newbies that we would be fresh meat. During my first week, I noticed a few women were being especially friendly with me. After they realized I wasn't going to sleep with them, they stopped talking to me.
If I wanted to engage in this hedonistic lifestyle, acquiring a friend with benefits requires little tact and even less effort. A friend explained to me how easy it is to score with whom he calls "ship sluts." One night he was acting as a wing man for his buddy in the crew bar when he spotted a bespectacled girl whose name he did not know.
"Hey, Glasses," he said, and that was all it took. Less than an hour later, he took this anonymous girl back to his cabin for a loveless romp on the mattress.
There are several problems with these encounters, however. The first threat is an STD or an unexpected pregnancy. The ship provides free condoms, but I still hear stories about infections and abortions. Even if you can avoid these perils, you cannot avoid the accompanying awkwardness of seeing the girl you just banged flirting with another guy in the crew mess.
You can also find boyfriends and girlfriends, even husbands and wives on the ship. Relationships can form quickly because we all spend every day together.
Our unique circumstances bind us together as we weather the same hardships. Dating can be a great way to reduce stress and eliminate alienation as you fight the battle of cruise life together. Having a partner boosts your spirits and always gives you something to look forward to after work.
But relationships can also smother you as you say good-bye to most of your friends. With limited free time, you work, eat, sleep, and explore with your partner because you know your days together may be numbered. As the days go by, the question looms: what happens next?
Many of us live in different states or even countries separated by oceans. Will a couple reluctantly keep this job just so they can continue seeing each other? Or will they plan to move somewhere else together?
Many of us are wanderers uncertain when we're going to settle down. Relationships can easily dissolve when they go long-distance. Or the alternative: individual dreams are abandoned as a couple's future becomes entangled. Should I keep the girl, or hit the open road alone once more? I've asked myself this before, and I still don't have the answer.
I became involved with a woman from California while we were volunteering in Ghana. We spent every day together and overcame the same struggles as a team, so our bond was quick and intense. We exchanged intimate thoughts while we shared a life-altering experience, but I wondered how we would fare with the quiet and the normalcy of home life.
We made tentative plans to continue the relationship back home in the States. We promised to keep in touch until we had enough money to plan a visit. When I returned home, we spoke often in the beginning, but the phone calls became less frequent and the conversations became less animated. I could hear her waning interest in her voice. My hesitation was growing as I began to question the likelihood of success. Was I deluding myself that we could make this work even though we lived on opposite ends of the country? Did I abandon my rational thoughts as I became intoxicated with the fantasy that I had found the one?
Maybe we only needed each other to deal with a foreign environment. Together we were less vulnerable. When we both returned to our separate lives, we didn't need each other to handle our ordinary routines. Although our connection at the time seemed amplified, I was beginning to think that our encounter was only meant to be brief.
My trip to Ghana was the first time I traveled outside the U.S. Back then I didn't question my motivations for traveling, but now I ask myself what it is I'm searching for. Am I wandering around to appease my curiosity? Or am I subconsciously driven to find an ideal place to settle down? Or am I looking for someone?
With less than three weeks left on my contract, I find myself getting involved with a woman I greatly admire, but I hesitate to become too attached because I'm uncertain if I will ever see her again. It's natural to back off in this situation in order to avoid a painful ending that may seem inevitable.
But when I'm under this spell, I note how rare it is find someone with whom you share a real connection. Our meeting in the first place was highly improbable, and this very unlikelihood makes me want to take this chance again. Maybe this is foolish, but I would rather rush onward with full force only to crash and burn later.
I don't want to take the conservative route and wince at the pain that may never arrive. Even if I fail, I want to look back and say that I tried, and I'm grateful for the time we briefly shared. It was better than doing nothing because we were too afraid to take that risk.
Although I initially wished to remain antisocial and avoid attachments, I'm glad I abandoned this plan. Friends on the ship need each other. We pick each other up when we're suffering cabin fever or we're exhausted from the physical demands of our jobs. The friends I've made have enriched my experience and without them I would have jumped ship a while ago.
I've already said goodbye to a few friends whose faces I miss seeing in the hallways. I used to get so excited to go to work so I could goof around with them, but now they're at home trying to forget about this place or contemplating their return.
Part of me wants to go home, and that part is my legs. The rest of me will miss all the people I've grown close to. For a very short fraction of our lives, we are all here in the space speck on the globe, but very soon I will likely never see these people ever again. You can never count on anyone sticking around too long. Eventually we all move along to collide with the next batch of strangers until we bump into someone we hope will be a permanent home. For the time being, temporary friendships have their benefits, even when they're played out as memories.
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