Linda’s foray into online dating immediately establishes a comparison point to her bond with planes, driving the critique that human relationships can be transactional, fraudulent, and ultimately inferior to the kinds of relationships Linda wants for herself. Her initial excitement on Pilotdate.net, a niche site catering to her specific desire, quickly collapses when she discovers the messages are spam for sunglasses, reducing her singular passion to a marketable demographic. This experience frames the digital world as a source of hollow promises, a perception solidified by her date with Simon. He admits he faked his profile because “You would never have talked to me if I hadn’t pretended to be a pilot” (77), confirming that deception is a prerequisite for connection in this sphere. The narrative portrays a world where even the most targeted attempts at finding a partner are thwarted by commercialism and dishonesty, reinforcing The Alienating Nature of Modern Life. In this context, Linda’s preference for planes becomes more of a logical response to a human world that offers only disappointment and artifice.

The flashbacks to Linda’s past sexual experiences with Brett and Freddie reveal the origins of her instrumental view of human intimacy. These encounters were formative, teaching her to dissociate sex from emotion and to see it as a mechanical process. Her first encounter with Brett in a Subway walk-in fridge is remembered as a “transaction” (60) completed in “two minutes flat,” a starkly unromantic and functional act. Her affair with Freddie provided a more “instructive experience,” where she learned the important skill of “how to pretend to enjoy sex” (61) by retreating into her mind to imagine planes. These episodes demonstrate that her objectum sexuality is also a coping mechanism developed in response to unfulfilling human contact. Having concluded that sex with people is something to be endured, she logically devises a plan to marry a pilot, assuming his “harried schedule meant I’d have to endure sex only a few times a month” (62) in exchange for flight benefits. This strategic approach to relationships is a direct consequence of her past, shaping her monomaniacal quest.

The recurring symbol of vision boards is developed to critique the self-deluding logic of New Age spirituality and its commercialized promise of control. When Linda’s vision board appears to “manifest” the pilot from her board as spam messages, she momentarily considers the board’s immense power before realizing the truth. Yet, this failure does not discredit the practice in her mind. Instead, after her date with the fraudulent Simon, she reinterprets the event as a success, concluding that “The universe apparently took things literally” (84) by sending her a man using fake photos just as she had used stock photos. Her subsequent sighting of Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury at the airport cements her faith. By retroactively fitting evidence, even if this evidence can be easily dismissed as a scam or coincidence, into her belief system, Linda engages in a circular logic that inoculates her against reality. This dynamic exposes Manifestation as Toxic Positivity, a worldview that reframes negative outcomes as cosmic lessons rather than confronting genuine disappointment. This belief system provides the psychological framework that validates her unusual desires, turning them into a spiritual quest sanctioned by signs and portents.

Linda’s interactions with Karina reveal her complicated performance of conventional femininity as a tool to achieve her unconventional goals. Recognizing her own social awkwardness, she allows Karina to guide her through female bonding rituals like shopping and makeovers. She submits to buying a gold dress and expensive heels, adopting a “timeless, versatile, day-to-night look” (66) that is completely at odds with her authentic self. This attire is a costume, a means of playing the part of a woman on a date to get closer to her true objective: a pilot, and by extension, planes. Rather than seeking male approval for its own sake, Linda is instead using the established script of heterosexual dating to pursue a desire that exists entirely outside of it.



The contrast between Linda’s awkward date with Simon and her passionate encounter with the plane N108DQ highlights the sincerity and depth of her objectum sexuality. Her time with Simon is stiff, governed by social codes she barely understands. In contrast, the moment she enters the airport, the narrative tone shifts to reverence and desire. She moves through the terminal as if it were her “personal red-light district” (83), and upon boarding the plane, she regards its interior as a “sacred place” (86). The sexual act that follows is described with an ecstatic intensity entirely absent from her recollections of human sex. The plane’s violent, roaring takeoff brings her to multiple orgasms, an experience that is both physical and transcendent. This juxtaposition firmly establishes that for Linda, the human world is one of alienation and pretense, while the world of aviation is where she can live an authentic and fulfilling erotic life, free from the disappointing transactions that define her interactions with people.