Fear Of Intimacy: No, You Can’t Spend The Night

A friend shared this article with me and I wanted to pass it on...


You’d be surprised at how many men expect to spend the night after you’ve slept with them for the first time.

Now, to be fair, I guess they generally have some reason to expect that. I’m far too awkward for one night stands, so we’ve probably been dating for some time. And we’ve expressed some sort of affection for each other. I have probably even told him that I like him and find him attractive – I’m sappy that way, like a Hallmark card. Which may be why, approximately one minute and thirty seconds after we’ve finished (I watch the clock), they look surprised when I say one of the following:

1) Gosh! That was lovely. There’s an all-night diner up my street, why don’t we get dressed and go there? (And then you should go back to your apartment).

2) Well, I’d love for you to stay the night, but I just have so much work to do. At 3:00 in the morning. Which is when I like to work. (I’ll just be sitting at my computer playing Civilization III which is all I ever do at 3:00 in the morning. Empire building is my job).

3) I’m sorry, I just have to get up really early for a thing. A breakfast thing. So, it’ll be best if I sleep alone. (Please don’t quiz me on the “breakfast thing.” I’ll make up something super insane if I’m put on the spot like “It’s with the Dalai Llama!”)

4) It’s such a shame that you have to start work so early. Though it’s great! I really admire how hard you work. You know, the northeast corner across from my building is usually the quickest spot to get a cab.    (I would offer to drive him, but, New York).

Or simply:

Such a pity you can’t spend the night. (Because presumably we live in a nightmare world where no one ever spends the night anywhere, ever).

There are some people who know me well – hi, Mom! - who assume I don’t let gentleman callers sleep over because I’m just being considerate. I’m a terrible sleeper. While I’ve finally conquered my early childhood sleepwalking, and no longer awaken to find myself under my bathroom sink, I still have night terrors and periodically wake up screaming. On occasion I’ve been told I also emit a low keening wail that reviewers have called “freaky,”  ”scared the shit out of me” and “you realize you sound like a zombie?”  These tendencies are good, completely understandable reasons why someone wouldn’t want to spend the night with me. But they have nothing to do with why I don’t want to spend the night with them.

They do make for a good excuse about why I hate sleepovers, though. Even with warnings about my zombie wail, screaming, and general awfulness to sleep with, I am eventually talked into spending the night. Sometimes I do this because I feel like I’ve run out of excuses. Sometimes I do it because my gentleman friend’s apartment is located next to my favorite bakery. Either/or. When I do, I lie on a separate level of sheets from the other person and sleep fitfully, waking myself up every few hours, wandering around the apartment, usually resigning myself to sleeping on the sofa which I can excuse by saying I was “twitchy.”

Ultimately, this behavior leads to a conversation about how I’m “just like a guy!” because of the way I “hate to cuddle.” I guess they think it’s quirky, or cute, as though I really loved watching football games or drinking beer or hunting elk. Because hunting elk is the most adorable thing you can do as a girl.

Now here is a secret: I love cuddling.

It’s pretty much my favorite thing.

Do you remember  in When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal turns to Meg Ryan to discuss how women like to cuddle all night and men cuddle thirty seconds? When he says, “How long do you like to be held? All night right? See, that’s the problem. Somewhere between thirty seconds and all night is your problem”.

No, screw you, Billy Crystal, you are wrong. I do not want to be held all night – I want the cuddling to go into the next morning. I just want us to spoon and then when we get hungry I want us to rise to our feet, still spooning, and scuttle like Siamese twins into the kitchen where we’ll get – nothing, there’s no food in my refrigerator – and then scuttle back to the bed. And then nap. Still spooning. And I want it to go on like that forever. And ever. Until we starve. Or order take-out.

Do I like cuddling more than sex? In the post Sex-and-the-City era suggesting that you likeanything more than sex makes you a little unwomanly, doesn’t it? And I do like sex. I like it a lot. But I don’t find it makes me feel vulnerable - I find it, ideally, a fun activity, sort of like a more pleasurable version of tennis. But since I spend a lot of the time flipping through a mental rolodex of Cosmo tips, sex isn’t something that makes me feel exposed. But when I’m sleeping in someone’s arms? I’m completely, totally vulnerable. And I will say that after relationships end what I miss most isn’t the sex. What I miss most is feeling so safe and warm napping with someone on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Cuddling, when it happens, makes me feel like a jerk a lot of the time. Because unless I steel myself and rise every few hours and eventually sleep on the sofa, I cuddle, literally, unconsciously. Periodically I wake up and find myself lying on top of someone, like a cat. Mostly, though, I just grip the man through the night like a spider-monkey. And then I wake up and see some perfectly nice guy staring at me as though I’ve let him in emotionally and, no, I haven’t. And I feel like my body has just told him a massive lie.

But mostly I just don’t want to be my most vulnerable self with someone who I don’t completely trust to see me that way.

I’ve never regretted having sex with anyone. But I’ve regretted sleeping with plenty of people.

So, in the end, when I point men to the taxi stand all I’m really saying is, “I can have sex with you if I like you a whole lot. But if I’m going to spend the night curled up in your arms, clutching you like a marmoset, subjecting you to my sweet, sweet zombie love call – well, we had better be in love.”

By Jennifer Wright