It’s very easy to become another person when you’re away from home and the people you know. You can chose to be married or not, to be single or not, to have kids or not, so on and so forth. Royal Caribbean does not disclose personal information about its employee and anyone who does that is immediately fired. We did had a few cases when people working in the shipboard offices gave personal information about one employee or another, sometimes out of naivety or because the one who requested was a good friend, but those people are home now, looking for another job. This is good news for some who have things to hide, like many I personally know, but bad for others who have no means of finding who the loved one really is. It happened to me too and for a while I was ashamed, blaming myself for not seeing it coming, but then I realized it’s not my fault, I did not do anything wrong. I met him on my first contract; he was charming, smart, educated, and quite handsome. He told me he was single and I fell for it, maybe it was just wishful thinking, but he acted like one. No calls from home, no strange emails, we kept in touch daily when he was on vacation. And time passed, and we were seeing each other for almost a year when he told me he’s divorced and has a daughter. I should have slapped him and go away right on that moment for lying to me, but instead I understood his apologies and moved on. A few months after, finally he feels guilty enough to tell me he’s still married to his daughter’s mom, but they don’t live together for years. That was enough! Even I knew that no Indian will ever divorce his wife, no matter how horrible she is. It’s just not in their blood and culture and their family won’t speak to them ever again. Valentine’s day, while he was sleeping, I packed my bags, left the key on the living room table, and moved back to my cabin. Nobody can imagine how much it hurts; I have no words to describe it. But we all move on sooner or later. He showed up in the crew bar (we call it “back deck”) with a German girl after a couple of days, I met this wonderful man who makes me laugh and who I can actually relate to in terms of tradition and habits because we’re both European. But at least I didn’t show him off, I kept him to myself and enjoyed him and I still am. I just hope he’s not married or in a serious relationship because I really like him and believe me, I can be pretty picky when it comes to men. Labels: love, ship rules |
