A Nap Hangout

Good idea.

Sleep is important for our mental and emotional health, and also for our physical heath. The same is true for socializing. (You can Google my claims for yourself; I assure you the evidence is there.) Obviously it would be beneficial to combine those two things and do them both at once: sleep and socialize. So why not a nap hangout?

You and your friend are tired. The weight of the world is too much and it is very hard to be alive. You’re depressed and you don’t have any money, or, I don’t know what your issues are specifically. Maybe everything is pretty good for you but Donald Trump is still the president. That’s enough. Or maybe you’re tired from exercising and everything is actually fine? My apologies for immediately jumping to depression. Anyway, instead of going out to get a drink with your friend, or whatever it is you do — go to a movie, whatever — instead of doing those things, how about this: you just take a nap near each other.

Huh????

That sounds nice to me.

It could be in the same bed, if you’re very comfortable with your friend, or just on two soft surfaces in the same room. You could talk for a little bit first and then you go to sleep. Maybe you have a TV on in the background, or a podcast. Re-runs of a sitcom you like, nothing very heavy. You both have a blanket. Then maybe when you wake up from your nap you both get yourselves together — splash water on your face, etc. — and have a glass of wine, or whatever, now I’m just sort of spitballing. You wake up from the nap and watch the newest episode of Big Little Lies. The end of the nap doesn’t have to be the end of the hangout, is what I’m saying. But it could be, if you want. There are no rules.

You’ll wake up refreshed and having spend time with a friend who you like.

There are some problems, of course, with the idea of the nap hangout. Maybe you feel uncomfortable sleeping near someone — that’s fine, then maybe the nap hangout just isn’t for you. Maybe a male “friend” asks you to have a nap hangout but it’s only because he wants to have sex and thinks you’ll go along with it because, eh, whatever, you’re already napping. That would be bad. I don’t want the existence of a nap hangout to put another burden on women, to give them one more thing they have to awkwardly say no to or make up a lie about or ignore a text regarding. Hmm. I’m not sure how to fix this problem, to be honest. Men are going to attempt to abuse the nap hangout because they are terrible; almost every single one of them is so stupid and terrible that it’s crazy. Maybe you forward those requests to me and I’ll take care of it for you. I’m gonna say this: “No. You know why.”

One problem is unless you have, like, a sectional couch, it’s going to be difficult to find a room with two separate soft surfaces in it that would be good for napping on. Nobody wants to sleep in a chair. So, eventually, products will have to catchup with the nap hangout. Maybe somebody sells a little thing that turns into a little bed or whatever, I don’t know. Maybe people have whole rooms that are for naps. Remember in the Destiny’s Child episode of Cribs how Beyoncé had a whole section of her room that was just pillows?

Maybe that’s a thing that more people have, in the future.

So, that’s the idea. I haven’t looked around to see if anybody had it before I did, but I haven’t heard anyone talk about it before and definitely I’ve never been invited to hang out and nap. So. I think it’s a pretty good idea.