I went on a senior citizens cruise. It felt like middle school

There are two types of people in this world: those who think cruises are fun, and those who think they are floating shopping malls teaming with raucous children, drunk adults and norovirus. I have spent my life firmly in the latter camp.

It was, therefore, a weird choice for me to book myself on a weeklong Caribbean cruise. Particularly, one targeted at the elderly. Particularly, alone.

Let me back up. I’m a married woman in my 30s with a horror of vacationing in hot places, breaking bread with strangers and visiting ports of call where the local culture consists of Margaritavilles and novelty T-shirt shops. My ideal vacation is renting a villa in the Mediterranean during shoulder season when it’s cool and breezy, eating elaborate meals and driving to offbeat museums and hidden beaches.

But I’m also a romance novelist, devoted to my craft. And cruise ships are, for all their arguable faults, an excellent setting for forcing two strangers to spend a week together. Which is why I decided to maroon two characters on such a ship, against their respective wills, and make them fall in love. Because I am a comic genius, I also decided that my 30-year-old characters should make this journey on a boat for senior citizens.

Problematically, the only cruises I had been on in real life were those forced upon me in my youth — the Disney and Carnival variety. For verisimilitude, I needed to do research. And how do you research a luxury cruise for the 60-plus demographic?

Very sadly … you take one.

For plot reasons, I needed this cruise to be very fancy, which was at least a point in this venture’s favor. I researched boutique cruise lines and landed on one with a reputation for gourmet meals and pampering.

“Darling,” I said to my dear husband, “would you like to take a cruise with me for author research?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s a fancy boat filled with old people.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Unlimited alcohol?”

“Still no.”

“Our own butler!”

“Please stop.”

Which is how I found myself setting sail one fine November morning alone, save for 600-odd silver-haired strangers.

Because this trip was for work rather than (dubious) pleasure, I could not merely observe the cruise. I needed to participate in the same way my characters would be forced to. Attend shipboard activities. Book shore excursions. Make friends.

Unfortunately, participating in group activities and interacting with strangers are two of the activities I’m worst at.

The very enthusiastic cruise line representative with whom I arranged my trip had assured me this wouldn’t be a problem. Our ship, he swore, would be full of repeat cruisers who love to mingle and who would naturally take an interest in a relative spring-chicken. I’d be the social darling of the sea.

This is not what happened.

The rep was correct that the boat’s denizens were veteran cruisers devoted to the ship’s luxe service and intimate nature. What he miscalculated is that they are so devoted that many of them already know each other. They already have their cliques and social darlings. My relative youth did not provoke intrigue.

I felt like I had in middle school: awkward. Socially inept. A fish, pardon the metaphor, out of water.

But I did have one thing I lacked as a preteen: access to alcohol. The ship had many bars, and I am very good at drinking. I decided to station myself in front of a martini and strike up friendly chats with fellow guests sitting nearby.

But here was another fatal flaw. The ship was not fully booked, meaning the bars weren’t full. In order to sit next to a stranger, I’d have to eschew vast stretches of empty stools and plop down right beside them like a creep, hitting on unsuspecting old people.

But OK, I thought, as I drank alone. There’s the nuclear option: the singles table in the restaurant. The ship happened to have recently rolled out a new “solo traveler” package, so surely there would be other lonely stragglers eager to make new friends. I showed up at the restaurant in a party dress, heels and a big smile, trying not to let memories of finding a table in the school cafeteria paralyze me.

At first, it didn’t go well. The eight-top table for solo travelers was half-empty, and it quickly became apparent that none of us had anything in common. The pauses in chat were glacial as we all tried to think up stimulating questions that might lead us somewhere other than strained silence.

But then two men appeared and sat down like they owned the place. They were medium-handsome, in their 70s, and dressed dapperly in khaki slacks and navy sport coats bearing name tags that identified them as Bill and Frank. They had captain of the football team energy.

“Hi,” Frank said, waving the sommelier over to pour him a glass of wine. “How are you enjoying your first night?”

I’m not, I thought, but I gave him a big smile. “I love it,” I said. “I’m having so much fun.”

Casual chitchat flowed as Bill and Frank revealed they were “cruise ambassadors” — single men in their golden years who sail for free on the ship in exchange for spending their evenings dancing and dining with solitary female guests.

Frank, I learned, was a retired firefighter from Toronto who got into ballroom dancing when his wife passed away and learned of the ambassador circuit from his fellow students. Bill was a divorced grandfather from Michigan who spends “the season” at sea. “You get all the benefits of the other guests, plus a $30-a-day per diem,” he told me rapturously. “You just have to be in the ballroom from nine to midnight. And you can drink all you want.”

Given that the boat serves excellent food, top-shelf liquor, free Wi-Fi and twice-daily housekeeping, even my modest math skills calculated that this was a very good deal indeed.

Our hosts excused themselves before dessert to get up to the lounge in time for dancing. I leaned into the experienced cruiser to my left and probed her for more information.

“Are those guys gigolos?” I asked.

Though we’d struggled to say two sentences to each other before their arrival, now she looked at me with the conspiratorial twinkle of a longtime girlfriend.

“Technically,” she whispered, “they’re not allowed to ‘fraternize’ with guests. But it happens.”

She proceeded to tell me a soapy story about a friend who’d struck up a steamy interaction with an ambassador the year before on a different ship. It was hot and heavy until another woman boarded the following week and also struck up a steamy interaction with him — while his original lover was still on board. A torrid love triangle ensued, and one of the women left the cruise early, brokenhearted.

Cruise ships, I realized, are not just a little like middle school. They are very similar indeed.

I wanted to watch this drama in action, so immediately after dinner I went up to the lounge to observe the ballroom dancing. In my haste, I tripped on the carpet in my heels and rolled my ankle. I limped on, ordered a drink and stationed myself on a sofa near where the ambassadors were congregated to view the action. It did not escape me that I was behaving exactly the way I had at every school dance I’d ever attended: sitting in the shadows, unwilling to participate.

What I learned is that while you have to know how to dance to be a cruise ambassador, you in no way have to know how to do it well. The courtly gentleman guided women around the floor to big band standards with all the aplomb of teenage boys waltzing at a cotillion dance they’ve been forced to attend by their parents. But the women on their arms — better dancers all — didn’t seem to mind. The ladies were into it. And I was into the show.

One woman in particular danced with verve. A gorgeous middle-aged brunette spun and dipped with grace, putting more hip into it than you might expect with such a partner. She had moves and she had charisma. No one could take their eyes off her. I had found her: the most popular girl in school.

I was grinning despite the pain in my ankle, typing furious notes into my phone, when my dinner companion Frank noticed me in the shadows and, to my horror, asked me to dance. My blood ran cold.

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I explained that I am a terrible dancer in the best of circumstances, and could barely walk owing to my ankle. (It was not lost on me that I, the 38-year-old, was the one with mobility issues in a room full of people 40 years my senior.)

Despite my excuses, Frank didn’t take it well.

“Come on,” he coaxed, obviously offended but not willing to give up. “Just a spin.”

“I’m sorry,” I demurred. “I really don’t want to.”

Frank walked off with a sour expression, clearly feeling rejected. It seems cruise ambassadors can be as vulnerable as the rest of us.

Since I’d offended one, however, I knew I could not depend on their pack for social salvation. What I needed was an anchor friend. An extrovert better than I was at mingling.

I eyed the popular girl.

In school, I’d finally found acceptance by seeking out a few girlfriends who had many other friends. Their ease made me comfortable and allowed me to be more charming.

So when the belle of the ball took a break from the revelry and sat down to order a drink, I subtly repositioned myself on the couch across from her.

“You looked amazing out there. You’re such a good dancer,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said in a western twang, beaming at me. “I used to be a professional belly dancer.”

A rich opening line if ever I’d heard one. I peppered her with questions and learned she was a travel journalist from Oklahoma. She was bubbly and as committed to gathering cruise stories and new acquaintances as I was. And unlike me, she had an obvious gift for it.

I willed her to be my friend — and because she was everyone’s friend, it worked. By the end of the week, I was not only comfortable on the boat, but I’d made a cadre of vacation friends whom I genuinely liked, and whose life stories were useful local color for my novel.

I had graduated from weird dork to cool kid.

And this is a valuable skill. Because, as chance would have it, my mother-in-law requested a cruise through Alaska for her seventieth birthday this summer. It’s on a fancy boat, geared toward an older crowd.

I can’t wait to dance the night away with an ambassador.