Single Bed to Double Bed and Back

Let this tale of woe be a warning to any poor soul who takes the buying of a bed too lightly. If you want to stay happy in your new double bed with your new partner rather than be banished back to your sad old single bed then pay attention.

My friend David was a bit of a player and, indeed, it looks like he will have to regain those skills pretty soon. For years he’s been playing the field with one girlfriend after another with no relationship lasting more than a couple of months. To give him his due he was always faithful to his partners but I guess that doesn’t count for much when you’re only with them for about eight weeks. Anyway all that changed last May when he met Alice. Alice, he decided, was the one for him and it did appear like this was a relationship that was going to work. They liked all the same things and got on like a house on fire. So certain were they both that the relationship had a future that within three months, a record already for David, they were moving in together.

Given that David had been in so many beds in his time it is perhaps ironic that it was due to a bed that everything went wrong. In David’s defense when he decided to throw Alice’s bed out and replace it with a new one he did so with the best intentions and thought she was going to thank him for it. Her double bed had seen better days for sure. The frame was on its last legs and the mattress had lost most of its spring. So the idea was a good one but the execution lousy.

I could have told him from my own experience that there are three key things to consider when buying a new double bed with your partner. Firstly there has to be a long round of negotiation while you discuss which type of mattress you prefer for a good night’s sleep. David assumed that the spongy old soft mattress that Alice had been sleeping on must be as uncomfortable to her as it was to him. Certainly she probably could have coped with a new mattress with better support but she was never going to like the almost plank like firmness of the mattress that David naturally gravitated to.

Secondly a bed is after all a piece of furniture and a pretty dominating one at that. The style of bed frame you choose is always going to say a lot about you and your interior design tastes. This is a sweeping generalization but I think it’s safe to say that in the majority of households it’s mostly the woman who pick out the overall design or have the final say. I would certainly never have the guts to change a major piece of furniture in another woman’s house without really talking it through with her. I bet David wishes he’d done the same.

Thirdly and finally it’s all about the money sometime and a new bed and mattress doesn’t come cheap. Maybe if David had paid for this new purchase on his own credit card the damage wouldn’t have been irreparable but as it was he decided to use the only recently opened joint bank account that was supposed to be for special purchases decide on by the two of them.

So I guess I’ve already given away what happened but here it is in a nutshell. David took it upon himself to junk Alice’s bed, which it turns out she was quite sentimentally attached to, and buy a brand new bed. The new mattress was state of the art but rock hard. The bed frame was a very bulky leather affair that would look great in a hotel suite or a bachelor pad but looked ridiculous in Alice’s girly pad. And of course he used the money from their joint bank account to fund the whole expensive project. Then he sat back and waited for the praise.

Well as you can imagine none came and, indeed, Alice told David, in no uncertain terms, that she could never see their relationship going anywhere when he was so clearly, completely and hopelessly out of touch with her needs. So wrong was the bed purchase, in so many ways, that the situation was irretrievable. Within 24 hours he had gone from hero to zero, never got to sleep with her in the new bed and was banished back to his old apartment and his old single bed. I can’t say I blame Alice because it was a monumental blunder, but to see David’s poor bewildered expression you couldn’t help feeling quite sorry for him.