Singles Cruise

It was a singles cruise but it wasn’t a singles cruise:

each participant simulated detachment but none

was actually single. Some, like the recently widowed,

were attached to ghosts. Others were legally attached

to a living person they once but no longer loved.

A surprising number loved their partners profoundly

while fearing said partners inhabited the category

of those who loved them no longer. These participants,

whose fears may or may not have been founded,

attempted to self-protect by labeling themselves single.

Soon a pattern emerged: those who feared abandonment

developed around them a planetary-like orbit

of potential new partners to whom they could not attach

because they were already attached. Such orbits lasted,

sometimes, for years. The orbiters went to self-help groups

and/or analysts and/or wrote letters to advice columnists.

Because they could not detach from their objects of unrequited

affection, they became the predominant clientele for future

singles cruises, unilaterally sustaining the singles cruise business.

Kathryn Maris