Will Harris on the benefits of sleeping on his own
I’ve never been much of one for sharing. Maybe it’s the only child coming out in me, or maybe I’m just a selfish so and so, but I always think the world seems to work better when the boundary line between my side of the toy-box and everyone else’s is clearly defined. Nowhere is this more applicable than when it comes to sharing a bed.
So when, at the end of a date with the young fashion buyer I’ve been seeing for a couple of weeks, I hear the words “Why don’t you stay the night” come tumbling from my lips like an inescapable avalanche of horror, my first instinct is to act like we have momentarily slipped into a parallel universe.
“Sorry, what did you say?” I ask.
“Erm… I didn’t say anything. You just asked me to stop over. Didn’t you?”
Did I? In truth, this does not seem likely. Having endured years of restless nights with pretty much every character in the Boys’ Bumper Book of Sleep Disorders – the snorers, the fidgeters, the ones who try to mount you in the middle of the night, not to mention those three years I spent at university clinging to the side of a single bed while a succession of giants dozed peacefully beside me – the idea that I would instigate such a situation of my own free will is pretty rich.
“Couples who share a bed are 50 per cent more likely to develop health problems than lone sleepers”
Science, for once, is on my side. Research suggests men who spend the night with bedmates will experience higher levels of stress hormones and even impaired mental faculties the next day. Plus couples who share a bed are 50 per cent more likely to develop health problems than lone sleepers, including depression, heart disease, strokes, lung disorders, and – as I discover sometime around 3am – being punched in the face.
“Ow!” I yelp, struggling to a sitting position.
“What the hell did you do that for?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he murmurs, a faint shape in the darkness. “Just keep rowing.”
Why am I putting myself through this, I ask the universe, as I throw myself back down on the mattress and tug the covers sulkily around me. Sleep, to me, is a precious commodity. It’s like food, like sex; deprived of it for any length of time, I become a raging monster. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could possibly be worth the pain of a sleepless night.
A few fitful hours later, I awake to thin light drifting through the blinds and the weight of an arm draped around my chest. The sheets move, and I feel the warmth of a body shifting beside me. This is nice, I think, before I can help myself. Not that I’m reading too much into it. It’s clearly just my impaired mental faculties.
Illustration: Paul Lewis www.pointlessrhino.com
