I’d failed to pack ahead for any of the themed nights (including a very culturally questionable “Caribbean Queen” theme), so I fretted about what I’d wear, especially when Lynette showed up at my door wearing a goddamned tuxedo. And were it not for this story, there’s no way I would have voluntarily set foot on a cruise ship again. I had written her a note to try and tell her how much I loved her and try and figure out what was going on. I’d look at what books they’d leave on their pool chairs, what they ate and drank, and what they talked about, if I could hear. Back at the Gen O meetup on day one, the hairdresser who said some questionable things about trans inclusion complained about as much: “Why don’t we take off all our clothes like the guys on the boys’ trips do?

But while I’m confident in my sexuality, my gender presentation has never felt fully comfortable or stable in the same way — something of which, as a mostly gender-conforming person, I’ve also felt ashamed. I thought I’d mostly meet a lot of Midwestern, dutifully monogamous couples in their fifties and sixties.Others had come to see LP, one of the lesbian musicians headlining this trip, or because — like me — they’d seen the iconic L Word episode that takes place aboard an Olivia cruise. I would worry about which of the many friends my ex-partner and I shared I would lose in the dyke divorce. But as time went on, they got frustrated — understandably — and they suggested, as a reparative measure, that we open up our relationship. I knew my partner’s identity was its own independent, beautiful thing, something that was entirely their own. As we slipped back into our oversize robes, a staff member encouraged us to relax out on the spa’s lawn chairs.

One of my friends was in a hot tub, in the middle of the day, when she noticed that the women across from her were having sex in the same hot tub (she got out immediately). Sandals, whose marketing is targeted toward heterosexual couples eager for a luxe romantic getaway to a white sand beach, merely blended in with me to the majority of mass marketing in America.Later, when telling friends what had happened, I did laugh about it — one told me it sounded like something pulled straight out of The L Word, which, true — but I was also a little mad at that girl, and even more so at myself for being so sloppy.