"There's a lot of rhetoric about Drift partners comparing them to soulmates and stuff like that in popular media." He took a moment to shift, dropping his folded leg to the floor and bringing up the other to rest his foot on his thigh. "And even if the official literature discourages that view, you can't exactly undo years worth of movies and tv dramas and all that. The idea if Drifting with more than one person is practically synonymous with adultery to the general population." He paused, thencontinued in an easy drawl. "So it looks good to us wide-eyed cadets to see an established co-pilot going through the motions, even if nothing comes of it. Otherwise, you get the same mentality they have over at Alaska, where you hit it off with one person and don't look much further."

She could have been asking rhetorically, but just to be on the safe side.