People Are Cooked - Random Thoughts I Had on Our 7 Day Cruise

What I learnt on our 7-day cruise.

In general, believe it or not, I actually like most people. In fact, I enjoy getting to know strangers, people having a good time, and people living their best lives.

But on this trip, every now and then, I saw the ugly side of people, the inconsiderate side of people, the self-involved asshole side of people, the overly anxious and innately impatient side of people. That kind of person I wanted to throw off the cruise ship.

Honestly, I’d rather gargle battery acid at a daycare sing-along than spend another minute in line behind these anxiety-ridden cruise zombies.

Here are some of my thoughts about the current state of society.

1. Most parents are useless

To the point where I find myself wondering, “why the fuck are you even here?”. You’re not even bothering to parent the child you gave birth to. These parents are as helpful as a condom in a vasectomy clinic, completely pointless, but somehow still in the room.

We were on a tram heading back to the ship from the private island. There were two seats available next to us, and like an idiot, I tried to do the nice thing and offer the two remaining seats next to us to a mother and her small 5-year-old child.

Here was the first sign, she ushered her child on, didn’t even look at us, acknowledge, or even say thanks.

Okay, fine. Not the worst thing in the world.

But her kid, I’m deadly serious here, was fucking covered in sand, head to toe, with a few spaces of his actual skin exposed. This alleged mother didn’t even have the good sense to use one of those outdoor showers to hose the little gremlin off. I’m not fucking kidding, it was that bad. I would have snapped a pic, but I didn't want to be on the registry.

Oh, it gets worse.

This kid is licking some stone or shell of some kind, and the mother is telling him not to.

Shit mum: Taylor, stop licking that.

Bratty kid: NO!

Shit mum: THROW IT OUT NOW, TAYLOR!

Bratty kid: IT’S MINE!

Shit mum: Give to me, NOW!

Bratty kid: no.

Shit mum: That’s it. I’m done. [snatches it]

Bratty kid: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Shit mum: [winds up like she’s pitching for the Yankees and hurls the damn thing next to some poor Bahamian worker.]

Bratty kid: [screams in a pile of grief like a tiny Greek tragedy]

Bratty kid: WAAHHHHH, WAHHHHH, WAHHHHHH

Shit mum: I’m not talking to you until you calm down. Interact with me like a well-behaved kid.

Bratty kid: [wailing]

This happened for 15 fucking minutes all the way back to the ship.

I’d rather get waterboarded with boiling hot Mountain Dew than listen to another parent ignore their demon spawn in public.

Absolutely shit parenting. Then, when everyone got off, we couldn’t as we had to wait for the longest 5 minutes as she was blocking our exit way to get off the tram. She decided now was the time to put on the kids' shoes. Not while we were riding, not before she got on the tram, not outside the tram so the mrs and I could get off, but on the very two seats blocking our way to getting off the tram as we stood there patiently.

I was dumbfounded at how completely inconsiderate she was to other humans next to her; there were no apologies for the screaming, no trying to let us off, nothing. Just her awful child and her terrible, terrible parenting skills.

That’s as smart as doing your taxes during a home invasion; this is how shit of a parent she was.

I saw this a few times, spoiled little shits who offered their parents no respect, and the fathers just moped around like a deflated walrus behind the wife as the wife admonished them to “do something!”

In fact, a running joke we had the whole trip was this line we heard,

“Harold!!! Do something!”.

Believe it or not, I love kids, I love my niece and nephews and friends' kids, but I can’t stand parents who do the bare minimum because it shows, and we all have to suffer for it.

2. People don’t know how to leave an airplane

Correct me if I’m wrong… But when a plane lands and everyone leaves, we all agree it’s row by row, like somewhat civilized humans, right? Like, we have a modicum of respect for people?

Not some chaotic, post-apocalyptic stampede where Seat 34B thinks they're the main character and barrels down the aisle like they’re fleeing a burning building.

We were leaving a Delta flight and it felt like the animals have all escaped from Jumanji and were stomping on the aisle.

It's not a race. It's not the Hunger Games. It’s basic decency and spatial awareness.

Why the fuck are you up when the doors haven’t even opened yet? Why are you standing in the aisle to get off when you’re in coach seat 42c? You can’t go anywhere!

We ALL have connecting flights, relax. Try and think about people other than yourselves for 2 seconds of your life.

So please, wait your damn turn.

Row by row. Like we’re not cavemen.

And if you see a 5 foot 2 woman struggling to get her carry on off, don’t stand there angrily waiting to see if she can get it off, offer to help you daft cunt.

3. Most couples (men) settled

Yeah, I said.

They did, and it shows.

Seriously, man, watching these guys with their partners is like watching someone adopt a raccoon because it was already in the house. Guess I’m stuck with this now.

We had a game show on deck 5, which was held in the auditorium. It was a couples game show, and they chose a couple that had been together for 3 years, 10 years, and 25 years, when we heard how they met.

• The 5 year couple - the lady left him on read for 4 weeks on Hinge till she decided to message him.

• A question they asked was, “what’s the most common sentence your wife says?”.

  • “She’s always right”

  • “Just get it done”

  • “She likes making fun of me”

• A lot of these women made their now husbands jump through all of these crazy hoops and I didn’t really see where there was any reciprocity or what they got out of the relationship

The commonality?

All three couples were overweight, clearly didn’t take care of themselves, and to be honest, they both could have done better. They all seemed like they were just trying to survive their marriage and not enjoy it. If you bargain away self-respect for companionship, you’ll end up with neither, and I think that’s what we all witnessed.

Most dudes I saw on the cruise looked miserable with their spouses.

I observed this couple sitting, waiting for dinner, while both were on their phones, and not a sentence was uttered to each other for 30 minutes. Couples simply not having fun, and men being whipped by their wives to do random shit. Jumping through hoops is for dogs, not husbands.

And hey, being honest, maybe these men were deadbeats, maybe they needed constant reinforcement, either way, it was pathetic to watch.

4. Humans are weaker at communication than they ever have been

So many people walk by and look at floor, or their phones and barely acknowledge anyone else. So many people can’t look you in the eye when they communicate. So many people can’t communicate properly and really struggle for basic communicative interactions.

They don’t see you. They don’t want to see you. Because to see you would mean acknowledging they’re also being seen. And that’s terrifying to a lot of people these days.

We’ve created a culture where eye contact feels intimate and small talk feels like emotional labor. Where saying “hi” without a transactional reason feels weird. Where the average person would rather watch 10 TikToks than hold one real conversation.

And it’s not because they’re rude. It’s because we’re socially malnourished.

We replaced the connection with convenience. And now half the population flinches if a stranger says “Good morning.”

It’s chronic communication dysfunction.

People don’t know how to talk.

Or listen.

Or just be… in the presence of another human being.

It’s tragic.

We invented the most advanced communication tools in history…

Explain to how it’s made things so much worse?

5. Successful people exercise

I hated the gym on the Virgin Cruise line but I met 5 different people in the span of working out in 5 mornings.

• VP of Engineering

• Founder of a Fintech company

• Director of Finance

• Owns a Salon

• Is a full-time traveler influencer

I would wager that everyone in that gym who woke up at 7:00 am on a cruise has something going for themselves. Some of the other couples we met on the cruise were in shape, doing well, and well communicated. All of these things connect, whether you like it or not.

6. Most wealth is generational

I met a couple of business owners through dinner, cruise socials and one whiksey tasting night. I’m always fascinated about people who build a legacy from their bare hands and start from the bottom.

But here’s what I always learn. None of these people started from the bottom.

• I met the co-founder of Woop. fitness band creator. He went to harvard and launched the company afterwards. How did he get to harvard? His parents payed.

• I met someone who had their own fence company and had over four different warehouses. How did he get into the business? His father had a fence company.

• We met a woman who has her own Lash Bar (fake eyelashes). How did she achieve her success? Her aunt died and left a rental business space she owned in Manhattan. She gave it to her mum, and her mum just gave it to her daughter. She never has to pay rent on this space. For context, a salon space that’s 1000 sq ft+ goes for about $20,000 a month in Manhattan. She had this handed to her as well as a loan from her mum for $100,000 to start it up.

Are there some self-made successful business owners? Hell yeah they are. But those people are the exception, not the rule.

The cold, hard truth is that most successful people still benefit from systemic family support and opportunity.

I’m not hating, as my parents paid for me to go to college and business school, but I always acknowledge it would have been harder had it not been for them.

7. People are sheep

It’s embarrassing.

We're getting off the baggage claim, and there are two escalators going down. One was empty, and the other had a huge line. I just went to the empty one, and then a bunch of people followed behind us. People are sheep and just follow the motion of the crowd. Sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively.

Or when we went to line up for dinner and there was a huge line waiting outside the restaurant to get into it and eat at the cruise ship. I notice something weird…

No one’s moving.

No one’s trying the door. Everyone's just standing there, quietly, like obedient little lemmings waiting for a maître d’ who never arrives.

So I walk up to the front of the line, yes, the very front, because something felt off.

Me: “Have you tried going in yet?”

Random stranger in a sports coat, dead serious: “No… I figured they’d come out and get us.”

That’s when I realize…

This entire group of 30+ adults is just waiting because…well, they think they’re supposed to.
They’re standing there, blocking the elevators, looking like NPCs stuck in a loading loop, all because no one asked a basic question.

So I take a step further. I walk into the restaurant.

I ask the host:

Me: “Hey, are you seating people yet? I know we’re like… 5 minutes early.”
Host (without blinking): “Yes, of course. You can go ahead and sit.”

Boom.

Just like that, we’re seated.

While the herd is still outside, politely decaying until the servers come out and tell them they can come in.

Once the doors physically opened, everyone started flooding in at once, confused, semi-annoyed, and trying to pretend like they weren’t just standing outside waiting for someone to give them permission to live.

Shit like that is so odd, to me. Cause of one man's odd trepidation, we all stood outside like a bunch of dickheads.

Most people are just waiting for permission. To move. To ask. To lead.
They’ll block the elevator of their own life just to avoid looking “out of line.”

8. Large groups of people are useless

We were in the movieplex watching Thunderbolts, and the sound suddenly just went off.

I waited for 3-5 minutes, realized people were just going to sit there hoping for someone working there to catch on or something to fix itself. I walked down the stairs, and I walked past the concession stand.

See a kid in a red polo, probably 17, wiping down a counter like he’s on autopilot.

Me: “Hey man, Theater 4 lost sound about 5 minutes ago. Can you get someone to fix it?”

He pauses. Looks at me like I just revealed aliens exist.

Him: “Uh… oh wow. I didn’t know that. Yeah, yeah, lemme call the manager.”

Boom. Action.

Three minutes later, someone comes in with a headset, presses a button, and the sound comes roaring back like Thor just hit the subwoofers.

People in the theater start clapping.

But it wasn’t magic.

It was just an initiative. Something most lazy fat ass humans lack.

People have become so lazy that they would rather suffer in silence than take five steps to change something.

Hoping passive patience will solve an active problem.

But in life?

Nothing changes until someone stands up, walks out, and talks to the guy wiping the counter.