The Tale of the Bedhog

by Gwen Cooper — May 2, 2007

There's a certain amount of disillusionment that's probably inevitable in any new relationship--the day when you look over at your shiny new boyfriend and realize that he is, perhaps, not quite so shiny as you thought he was. As I said, this phase is inevitable, but it still tends to feel a bit like a slap in the face. Especially when your shiny new boyfriend is someone you've been best friends with, and thought you knew inside and out, for the past several years.

And, so, my moment of truth has finally arrived: Robert is (dun dun dun) a bedhog.

I can almost see you rolling your eyes and thinking: Girl, please! That should be the worst of your problems! But anybody who hasn't experienced my pain firsthand can't know what I suffer. The sleepless nights. The red-rimmed, bleary-eyed mornings. The endless tossing and turning and jostling to carve out the tiniest bit of space in the bed that I can call my own.

I've always been something of a sedate sleeper. Robert says that I sleep like a corpse in a sarcophagus: flat on my back, arms crossed over my chest, with essentially no movement. The habit of sleeping with three cats in the bed has probably trained me on some level to be more or less motionless throughout the night.

But Robert is all over the bed. He covers the mattress like a point guard covers a basketball court. He flips and flops and throws his arms and legs around like a man in the throes of an epileptic fit. And, last night, he rolled right over on top of me--not in an affectionate, cuddly way. More as if I were actually a part of the mattress, and he was simply lying on top of me, as if I and it were one entity.

And the snoring! Good God! I keep thinking of a Langston Hughes poem I read once that went something like: Had a dream last night/ Thought I was in Hell/ I looked over at you/ And, babe, your mouth was open like a well.

At least there's some comfort in knowing that what I endure has been endured by others before me--and generated art to boot.

And yet...I love this man. We haven't formally said it to each other yet, but I'm quite certain that I do. So what's the solution? Xanax, anyone?

And, I must admit, it's pretty wonderful to wake up first thing in the morning and see him smiling at me. That is, once my poor, exhausted eye muscles have found the strength to focus...

Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, recently published by Simon & Schuster. To read all of Gwen Cooper's posts in "The Dating Life," click here.