I went on a cruise. It blindsided me. What do I do now?

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Of course. She's engaged, so her first priority is her fiance, not a stranger she met on vacation. I won't write off the possibility of seeing her again, since she seemed enthusiastic about it, but I won't hold my breath for it, either. That said, if me and her (and her friends too, I presume) cruise together again, and she wants to kiss me on the dance floor, I'm not stopping her. International waters, you know. I just won't have an affair with her or anything like it; it's where I draw my moral line.

It took decades of trial and error. (I'm 36.) That, and a lot of reading: mainstream social skills self-help books, Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and last but not least, Red Pill blogs. (I wish I could talk about what I learned in those blogs, but The Powers That Be won't allow it.) I also had good experiences on two cruises I took before this one, so that gave me a confidence boost. And most importantly, I currently take Effexor for depression. So most of the times I interacted with that woman, I was either hopped up on it or I was drunk. Effexor is also used for social anxiety, which I don't have, so for me, it was the social equivalent of doping in the Olympics.

Thanks for the info
Its good that you don't want to be involved with the woman now you know she is engaged

I am impresed thsat an Aspie voluntarily got up to sing Karioke. But then I can do public speaking. I'd do Karioke if I had friends with me and had drank three beers.

I went on cruises with my Mother, On Princess, Holland America, and MSC. Being that I was My mother's caretaker I wasn't able to go seek out shipboard romances, and those lines aren't part boats like Carnival is. The dinner table companions wrere chosen as people my mother would identify with.

I have though, in my 50s succesfullt formed friendships and learned how to navigate dating and relationships though I have had nothing that pushed the edges of platonic.

I didn't have the type of bullying you describe done to me. It is inexcusable.

Well, I didn't exactly sing while sober, even though I sang alone. I drank a beer laced with vodka. And when you mix beer and hard liquor, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Which gave me the creative energy to replace the lyrics in "Kokomo" with the names of ports my cruise visited and the ship's name. That woman in the audience liked it, and the rest is history.

The bullying never happened on my cruises. But I was worried it might happen on my first one. I was 29 back then, so my memories of school bullying were less stale than now. Plus, the images of cruising I got from TV ads were far from positive: the actors in them looked like they will destroy anyone they perceive as uncool. I was quickly proven wrong, and enjoyed cruising ever since.