I have a friend who can’t have a relationship for more than a few weeks. He has tried for years, and I know that he really wants it to work, but it is physiologically and psychologically impossible. He tries to say this to the person he is currently seeing, before it turns too serious. He tries to explain about him really wanting and the impossibility of it.

We have talked about it. I know he feels better afterwards, even if it means that it’s already sunrise at this time, and he only has a few hours to rest before engaging in the new day. Since I told him about sunrises, my brother and night workers, he has called me more frequently, to spend the late evening and early morning talking about, instead of, sleeping. I worried in the beginning, for his and my well-being after spending so many nights awake. But the more he told me about his problem with his problem, the less I seemed to care about me sleeping, and started to worry about him staying awake.

I know he uses me as an excuse to avoid spending the night with the person he is currently seeing. He says that he needs to talk to me, that I need to talk to him, that this meeting late at night has been planned for quite some time, If he hasn’t known the person for that long, he might even say that this is the only time I’ll be able to see him, as I am extremely busy. This won’t work if the person he’s seeing has met me, or knows even the slightest thing about me.

My friend really wants to have a relationship that lasts for more than a couple of weeks. He has solved this by staying awake at night. Not with me, no, even though we stay awake together from time to time, he generally stays awake with the person he is sleeping with, so to speak. It’s an admirable characteristic to stay awake at night when you are with someone you like. To a beginning, the person he is seeing will feel special and extremely appreciated. My friend is very good at this first, furiously emotional, stage of love. So I’ve heard. The complete arousal of being together will keep the people sleeping together awake together. But sooner or later, everyone falls asleep.

When my friend first told me that he couldn’t have a relationship for more than a few weeks, told me about the physiological and psychological impossibilities of it, I didn’t really believe him. Of course I Believed him as such, people don’t say things like that with tears in their eyes and a trembling voice if they don’t really experience the feelings that they are expressing. What I didn’t believe was the fact that it could be that bad. That was when I told him about sunrises, my brother and night workers. We spent the night on my veranda, and we experienced the sunset and sunrise together for the first time. When the new day had come in all its pride, we decided that we wouldn’t go to work that day. Instead, he was going to show me how sever it was, his problem than gave him such a hard time.

With heads pounding, bodies urging to sleep, we fell onto and into my bed. I gazed at the alarm clock next to the bed. 07:30 its red digits screamed. I focused my eyes on the numbers, and told myself to stay awake. When my eyes opened again the clock screamed 09:04 and blood was pouring from my face and strong fists were punching my spine. I called the name of my friend, and at the same time tried to jump to the other side at the room, somewhat crippled.

The sight in the hospital mirror was not a pretty one. My nose was blue and so was everything else in my face that wasn’t red. With some agony and both my hands on my back, I turned to my friend, who looked equally bad, with a face red and tired from crying and a fist as purple as a mash of Blue Congo (the potato). The nurse had asked what had happened, and we had told her, explained everything. The doctor asked how it had happened, and I told him. He was a young doctor, and he looked at my friend with a doubtful expression. “You were sleeping when this happened?” he asked me, I said yes. “And you were also sleeping when this happened?” he asked my friend. My friend stared disappointedly at the doctor and left the room. I told him that yes, my friend had been sleeping before, during and after this had happened. I explained that I hadn’t believed him. The doctor believed me.

My friend has REM sleep behaviour disorder. He has not had a proper relationship for years. He is great staying awake with people he is sleeping with, but extremely bad at sleeping with them. His disorder makes him act out his dreams. They will fill his body and the fight and flight will move from his mind, to the real world.