I like Captains who are "mixers". It would help if they're mixers AND qualified sailors??? But I like mixers.

I don't need to dine with them, and rarely do (namely twice, and quite by accident). But I LOVE the Dag's and John McNeill's and Knut's and Neil Broomhall's of the world. And the Jamie's and Lorraine's and Sam Perry's. I like watching them "work a room", and mingle, and play shuffleboard with people, and laugh openly and loudly and often. I like the twinkle in their eye, and their charm, I like the way they make people feel so good, so warm, so special...

And while I personally do not like dining in the centre table with someone in uniform, I DP like watching some of the people who are tickled pink that they are invited, it makes their night, and I say "good on you, odds are you've worked long and hard, this is important to you, this is special to you, and you look great tonight". I don't think of them as egotists, I think of them as people who really get a kick out of that: I don't, they do, we're all human, I don't feel smugly superior just because that's not my thing.

I like Captains who are mixers. I will miss that.....or maybe not. Maybe I'll go where they are? Hard to say.