Date a US Navy Sailor
Sailors have always been intriguing people - sailing all over the world on a ship, fighting in wars, dealing with pirates, seeing places some people only dream about. Due to the nature of their work, however, dating one can be rather difficult, especially if you have little or no background with the military.
Steps
- Learn the language. The military has its very own version of the English language, and the Navy is no exception. Your sailor will throw around somewhat incomprehensible jargon because he or she is used to everybody understanding what they are talking about. This is simple to fix - if you don't know or aren't sure what your sailor is talking about, ask.
- Have all of your sailor's email addresses. Most sailors have two email addresses - a navy one and a civilian one. The navy email address is typically used for work, but many commands do not allow personnel to check their civilian email accounts on government computers for security reasons. And oftentimes, your sailor may not be reachable by phone for a variety of reasons (i.e. no reception, cell phones not allowed in certain buildings, etc) and it is oftentimes easier to reach him or her by email. This is especially true of ships. Cell phone reception inside a ship is almost non-existent. When these ships get underway, the sailors on-board are completely unreachable by cell phone and have no access to civilian email accounts.
- Be flexible. Your sailor's work schedule will change at random, and often at short notice. On this note, try not to plan any surprise vacations. His or her command probably has a radius of several miles (i.e 300 miles) that they aren't allowed to go outside of without an approved leave chit. It would be a shame to spend time and money planning a trip only to find out that your other person can't go. Another thing your sailor will have to do is stand duty every so many days. This varies from command to command, and sea duty to shore duty. Usually, ship duty sections stand duty for 24 hours, and aren't allowed to leave the ship. Standing duty at a shore command is more relaxed. If you don't know what your sailor is talking about, just ask.
- Be patient. There's a saying in the Navy, "Hurry up and wait." What that means is it often takes a long time to get anything done, much to the chagrin of your sailor. With schedules described in the above step, sailors often like to take leave, the military version of vacation days. Sailors get 30 leave days a year and emergency leave is deducted from that total if it is used (there is no "sick leave," ill sailors are either hospitalized, put in bed rest [or "SIQ,"] or re-assigned to a duty they are able to perform.) Sailors are, however, allowed to go "in the hole," and have a negative leave balance in some situations and they will earn their leave back. The sailors also have to route a special chit requesting how many to use and when, and get it approved. In fewer words, they have to get permission first. This takes as little as four business days, but up to a couple of weeks or more. Another thing you will have to be patient with, is mail. Sending mail to their command, especially if it's a ship, usually takes much longer than mail sent to a 'normal' address. Send something to a ship deployed overseas, and it will likely reach its destination in a few months, or more. A Christmas card showing up in March is not uncommon. Keep that in mind when sending off a care package to your said sailor.
- Be understanding. Your sailor may not be able to talk about everything, or anything, pertaining to his or her job, or even schedule, for security reasons.
- Write often, if your sailor is deployed or in a different part of the country or world than you are. Or if you feel like. You may not hear back from your sailor everyday, or even every week, but emails from home are always welcomed.
- With all this in mind, proceed how you would normally date someone.
Tips
- E-mail is great, but there is nothing like receiving a good old-fashioned letter, So send them often.
- If your sailor is in boot camp, don't expect any emails. A letter will probably come about once a week. Having said that, send him or her as many letters as you can. Nothing is worse than being the only recruit that didn't get any mail. An occasional phone call from a strange number may arrive in the middle of the day. Recruits only get a few phone calls the entire two months they're in boot camp, and if you're available to answer it, do so. The only thing that sucks more than not getting any mail is not getting to talk to a person during the said very precious phone call.
- Some ships have 'sailor phones' they can use to call home when their ship is underway. So, an odd phone call in the middle of the night from a strange number may be from your sailor. If you don't answer the first time, they may call back to see if you'll answer. Try not to be mad about the possible midnight hour such a phone call may arrive. This is due to some combination of phone availability, schedule, and time zone.
- Email on a ship can be VERY unreliable. Sometimes messages sent in either direction are lost and never recovered.
- If you know they have more than one email address, but you only have one of them, ask why. There are many plausible explanations for this
Warnings
- If your sailor is still in boot camp, don't send food of any kind whatsoever. It will be confiscated.
- Don't send any nude pictures to your sailor's military email address. Military email is subject to monitoring, so it should be assumed anything sent to military email is NOT private. And if/when they are discovered, the said sailor WON'T get into trouble, but the command may request the sailor not receive e-mails of the nature. It really depends on the person screening the email. Normally, they are just passed straight to the sailor without any warnings or punishment.
