Why won’t anyone sleep with me? Sharing your bed doesn’t just warm the body (which is handy at the moment) but the heart, too, says COSMO LANDESMAN. The only problem? His lady friends always seem to ‘bonk and bolt’
- Cosmo Landesman reveals he has to sleep on his own as women leave after sex
- He disagrees with Billy Crystal, who says to Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally…that after sex men are thinking just one thing: ‘How long have I got to hold her?’
- READ MORE: LIZ JONES’S DIARY: In which an admirer angles for a visit
I can’t sleep! It’s 3am and I can’t sleep! I’m sitting upright, staring into the dark and thinking the same thing I always think about at 3am: why can’t I find a woman who wants to sleep with me?
I don’t mean have sex with me – I mean sleep with me. As in, stay the night in my bed. As in, cuddle up and wake up entwined in each other’s arms. Or back to back. Perhaps a spot of spooning? I’ve even offered sleepover bribes – I’ll make you tea in the morning! I’ll rub your back and bring you breakfast in bed! But whatever the offer the answer is always the same: no thanks, gotta go.
That’s what the woman I’m currently seeing said three hours ago, but then she always says that. One minute we are blissed out and wrapped around each other as tight as a bandage – when suddenly she leaps up and tells me she has got to go. And before you can say Uber, she’s gone. So here I am, on my own at 3am – 3.25 to be precise – wondering why it is that, having had two wives, dozens of lovers and numerous girlfriends, I now have to sleep on my own? Is it me? Is it them?
It’s a terrible time of the year for solo sleeping. (So terrible that people are practising ‘cuffing’ – that’s when you date someone during the holidays and cold-weather period to stay warm.) It gets dark early and it’s bloody chilly and who can afford to turn on the heating? Yes, I have a hot-water bottle to hold, but it’s no match for a warm body. I also miss that connection when two bodies fit perfectly into each other – like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly, you see the big picture of life and it looks less scary and lonely. Your dark 3am thoughts disappear. Your bed is warm and so is your heart.
I can’t sleep! It’s 3am and I can’t sleep! I’m sitting upright, staring into the dark and thinking the same thing I always think about at 3am: why can’t I find a woman who wants to sleep with me?
Over the past couple of years, I’ve had three women in my life and not one wanted to stay the night. This contradicts the popular stereotype that it’s always men who want to make a run for it after sex. In the classic romcom When Harry Met Sally… Billy Crystal says to Meg Ryan that after sex men are thinking just one thing: ‘How long have I got to hold her before I can get up and go home?’
Is that what these women who bonk and bolt are thinking of me – how long have I got to hold this needy bloke before I can get back to my own bed? So now I know what it must feel like to be a woman – especially the ones I did that to in my youth.
But why are these women preferring not to sleep over? Is it a feminist/autonomy/empowerment thing? A fear of intimacy thing? A primordial preference for one’s own territory thing? All of the above?
One woman told me that she couldn’t stay the night because she had to get back home to her cat. She claimed that her cat was ‘very neurotic’ and had ‘abandonment issues’, so it was best if she went. But when I suggested I stay at her place instead she explained that her cat – who always slept with her – didn’t like strange men in the bed.
Another woman said she couldn’t stay because she had to get back to her kids. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I understand.’ But I didn’t. Her ‘kids’ were in their 20s!
At least one woman was honest about her reasons: ‘I hate sleeping in someone else’s bed!’ she confessed. ‘I can never actually sleep. I like my duvet and my pillows. Men’s beds always smell funny. Slightly musty.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Why don’t I sleep in your bed?’ ‘No. I hate having someone sleep in my bed,’ she said. ‘It’s such an invasion of your personal space.’
We are vulnerable when we are sleeping; it requires trust, and we know that in the morning we will be seen at our worst (stock image)
Yes, I realise that you should never sleep with someone who talks about invading their ‘personal space’. But I always thought that an invitation to sleep over would be welcomed by women – it showed an openness to commitment and intimacy. ‘No,’ says a young female friend. ‘It’s a sign of desperation and neediness. There’s nothing so unsexy as a man offering you a spare toothbrush – which you know has been used before by the previous woman – and one of his old pongy T-shirts to sleep in. No thanks!’
It’s odd that we’re willing to share bodily fluids with each other, but not a bed. But then sleeping with someone is an act of intimacy, one that is in some ways more intimate than sex. We are vulnerable when we are sleeping; it requires trust, and we know that in the morning we will be seen at our worst.
I confess that I’m not an easy man to sleep with. I tend to go to bed too early for most of my partners. Some years ago I asked my then girlfriend to marry me. ‘Absolutely not!’ she declared. ‘I won’t marry a man who goes to bed at 8.30pm.’ (I don’t always go to bed that early – honest!) And, yes, I snore (badly). I have to pee at least three times a night. And once in a while I have night sweats. OK, nobody is perfect.
That said, I’m a man who really loves to cuddle all night long – and I make a great cup of morning tea.
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