I mean literally sleeping, after the sex mentioned above.
Left side, right sight, you, them. You’ve got a 50% chance you both want the same side of the bed.
Couple who live together or are otherwise in LTR typically have a side of the bed that is theirs. How do you work who gets which side for a new couple when both parties prefer the same side?
You don’t care? Whichever party’s place you’re staying in gets ‘dibs’? Getting up to go to the bathroom loses / move your meat, loose your seat? Other?
I know where the clock radio is in my room. If I wake up in the middle of the night & can see it, I can easily fall back to sleep. However, if I can’t see it, whether a hotel room, camping, or otherwise somewhere else, I can’t just fall back to sleep. I guess the, “Wait, you’re not in your normal place” gets the brain going. Being on the wrong side of the bed does that to me. Since about 10 yo, when I moved, the clock is always visible from my left side. If it’s not, I’m out of place.
Every GF I’ve ever had has always slept to my right side. And I don’t recall ever having a discussion about it. It almost feels instinctual that the girl would sleep to my right.
Withe me and my wife, it seems to change. At home, she is on the right side (looking at the headboard), as she was at our previous house. We rented a house for a brief time, where she took the left side. When we go to a hotel, I’m not sure how we figure it out. My guess it is whoever gets their suitcase set on the luggage rack. Whichever side of the bed it is on is “their” side.
OP: You might want to practice moving the clock radio a few times and sleeping on both sides of your own bed alone. That way this issue doesn’t become a dealbreaker or at least awkward once you’re not solo any more.
I sleep in hotels 10-12 nights a month and have for the last almost 30 years. Every night is a new & different hotel versus last night. I do care about what time it is in the middle of the night. But that’s what a wristwatch is for. I haven’t misplaced my arm yet.
Other than that I don’t care. The rest of the room arrangement is random. Sometimes the bathroom is to the left, sometimes the right. Sometimes behind a partition, sometimes not. Maybe the thermostat is near the window, maybe it’s near the door. When I get up to pee, will the floor be Pergo, tile, or carpet? Heck if I know; let’s stand up and find out. Where’s the toilet? Darn good question; good thing they all usually feel about the same.
Head pointed north, south, east, west or anywhere in between. Some folks claim they can only sleep aligned with magnetic north. Maybe they’re right. But I doubt it.
After all that, I *do *try to sleep on the same side of the bed in a hotel as I do at home. But that’s mostly so I don’t tear the bed to shreds or get wrapped up in the 6 or 8 pillows (Marketing idiots!) that are commonly on hotel beds these days while trying to just get up for a whiz. Knowing which side is the way out is useful.
My days of sleeping with unfamiliar people are now long long ago but I have no recollection of it being an issue. Though I was young and flexible and not as set in my ways then. Plus, I’d just had sex. That tends to make little shit like clock radios on the correct side just not seem *quite *as important.
Whoever’s bed it is gets dibs, followed closely by rule variation #1:I Don’t Really Give a Shit; Just Let Me Alone Once We Really Try to Sleep. With rule addendum #1:Maybe We Can Press Our Butts Together While We Face Away From Each Other aka I’ll Guard This Side You Guard That aka Don’t Breathe on the Back of My Goddamned Neck.
My husband and I don’t have a his side/my side. I don’t know why. It may be that our bed is against the wall on one side, and frequently one of us goes to bed before the other, so that person takes the inside. We don’t have a headboard, either, just bookcases, so sometimes we switch which is the head and which is the foot of the bed. We don’t have a TV in the bedroom, but sometimes I take my laptop in if I want to watch something while I fall asleep. We had a small TV in the old house, but it was to the side of the bed.
We’re not the only couple I know who don’t have sides. My aunt and uncle didn’t for the first several decades of their marriage, then she had to have her lower right leg amputated, and so the had to pick sides, because she needed to sleep on the side with her leg.
My mother always had the right side when my father was alive, until he developed a bad snore, and refused to see a doctor. For the last 10 years of their marriage, she slept in my old room. Then she married my stepfather. He apparently didn’t care left or right, but had to be closest to the door. She liked to be right. They placed the bed accordingly.
We did a similar thread a few years ago about which side people prefer. It just wasn’t in the context of first-time togetherness like this OP.
It was amazing to me how many men said “I must be on the door side so I can save her from home invaders.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell them that probably put their damsel about to be in distress nearest the … gasp … window! Where the prowlers and peeping Toms are.
I have always slept closest to the door and have no idea why, the girls always use the restroom more so it would make more sense for them to sleep on the door side
An interesting sidecar***** question to this is: Do you prefer the same side every night, or do you not care?
I do seem to develop a mild preference for the same side after a while, but that’s just out of my preference for autopilot mindless ritual. Overall, though, the Don’t Give a Shit principle overwhelms. If I’m sharing a bed with someone, short-term or long-term, then awesome. If I’m alone, it’s diagonal time. plus possible gentle pillow humping*****.
***** - whatever
I’ve alwaus tended to sleep on the side with the alarm, which in my own home tends to be on my left. My last regular guy also slept on teh left side of his bed. If we were in his home, he was on the left. In mine, it was me. That was pretty much established right off.
Each of us has a side at home, but sometimes the sides switch when we’re not home. The bed in my wife’s old apartment was in a loft, so whichever one of us needed to get up first would sleep on the ladder side. Since we left that apartment I’ve always had the right side, but sleep on the left when we sleep at my childhood home. At hotels it varies.
Actually, in his case, I think it’s 30 years of being in the Navy.
No, I meant her prosthetic leg. But she did retrieve the amputated one in order to have it buried in a Jewish cemetery.
When I signed the consent form for my c-section, I had to sign a special paper saying that if I needed a hysterectomy, I wanted all the organs back for burial. Fortunately, nothing removed. They screwed up my tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy, and gave me the organs-- in a jar of formaldehyde. Couldn’t bury them in the cemetery after that, so on the advice of my rabbi, I let the hospital dispose of them.
These are the two right answers for me. I really don’t care, but if I did, put me closest to the bathroom and you fight off monsters. However, once we’re wherever, don’t be trying any of that touchy-feely shit with me. I’m here to sleep and you are two hot, even if you’re dead. Stay over ------------------> there.
