Dear The New York Times:

Let me start by saying that I’m a big fan of your whole operation. You’re doing some solid reporting on many of the world’s issues under just the veil of liberalism that my coast-dwelling, 20-something peers and I appreciate.

That said, what in Tina Turner’s name was that article about the “stayover” as a new form of relationship?? Did someone forget to turn in an assignment? Did you promise the Sunday Styles intern they could write a piece before Summer’s end? Or is it worse than all that? Do you actually think that a “low-commitment form of cohabitation” is a new thing for the pre-married, pre-living together set? And did you actually coin a term for sleeping over at your boy/girlfriend’s house?

My fear is that you actually do slash did…

If I’m reading this article correctly it is saying that people who are dating but not living together spend many nights a week sleeping over at each others’ houses in the period of time before they move into the same apartment. I’ve gathered this fact from the following sentence: “It seems that emerging adults age 18 to 29 often spend three or four nights a week at the home of their partners on a long-term basis rather than move in together. ”
These arrangements are very different from traditional cohabitation, the article says, which makes sense because cohabitation is living together and sleeping at each others’ apartments is sleeping at each others’ apartments. So, glad we’re clear on that.

“The main difference was that stayovers formed out of convenience, whereas cohabitation tended to be more committed and directed as a possible step toward marriage or family.”

Right, true. But before you’re comfortable arriving at those committed steps toward marriage or family, don’t you do something called dating? And during the time you’re doing that thing called dating while still figuring out if you’re ready to put/accept a ring on it, don’t you naturally sleep at each others’ respective places because sleeping together is fun? So if staying over is what all couples on a hopeful march toward living together do, then why is it suddenly a phenomenon of the 20-something set?

Here’s one “clue”: “Stayover couples tend to like the physical and emotional closeness of staying in with a partner rather than going out on a date,” Ms. Jamison said in a telephone interview. “But after a night in together, they could then go their separate ways.”

Oh! So stayovers are meet-ups for the sole purpose of sleeping together that do not involve traditional dates. Guys (shakes head), that’s called hooking up, and it’s been going on for a really long time.

Let’s take a look at another one: “Even though they are staying three or more nights a week at their partner’s place, they feel very much like they’re guests there,” Ms. Jamison said. “Whereas a cereal bowl would get left in the sink at their own place, at their partners’ home they took care to put it away.”

But I put my cereal bowls away at my house and R’s house because that’s what clean people do. Does this mean I’m in a totally different category? Am I a Girlfriendguest? A Stayslave? A Playing House-er?

Oh wait! I didn’t read down to the end yet: “While the study purported to put a name to the phenomenon and to describe it, it did not look at the overall incidence of stayovers or examine their trajectory over time. It’s possible that stayovers have been around for decades and that they exist beyond the confines of the young college-educated couples Ms. Jamison examined.”
If I were to re-write this sentence it would read: But maybe everything you just read about is wrong because we didn’t really do a lot of research on it, so…well…just know that.

My sarcasm-ladden point is this: If you want to write an article about how long today’s couples’ are waiting to move in together, awesome. I’m curious about that. If you want to write an article about the fact that people sleep together many nights a week without formalizing their relationship, also fine, but by no means news. This appears to be an article about a fun new word that means something some research has yet to really define.

So I say tisk, tisk, New York Times. You should know better than to print made up dating phenomenons because they have cute names. Or, if you don’t, can I interest you in my expose on date-cations (couples are going on vacations together in mass numbers before they’re married!) or my study on eye-cheaters (an undetermined percentage of men at a bar will give flirty looks to women even if those men are in relationships!!).

Fondly,
Jessie