not again!
I snore.
Like about 45% of the adult population who snore occasionally, or the 25% that snore all the time, I fall to sleep and learn from others that i’ve been snoring. Mostly men, older men, fatter men. I fit 2/3 of those categories. I don’t know how long I’ve been doing this, but I noticed comments from my partner years ago, so I’m guessing around age 40 this began. Like everybody who is kicked, pushed or simply yelled at, I woke up to hear somebody loudly yelling at me “your Goddamn snoring woke me up”. It was as if I had decided to repair my speaker system in bed at 2 am, running old Led Zeppelin tunes over and over again until the woofer and tweeter were properly balanced, deliberately ignoring the person sleeping on my right side. It was as if I chose to engage in an activity that had a high likelihood of waking her.
I reacted as all new snorers do: I felt guilty and ashamed. What’s wrong with me? Why would I do such a thing to somebody else? The nightmare that most people start having around age 30 – that they are slowly becoming their parents – hit me hard that day. My father snores so loudly that he and my step- mom have separate bedrooms. I don’t really mind the thought of becoming my dad as he’s the man I admire the most, but, and his snoring never bothered me, but that does not mean I like the thought of snoring. But when you think about it rationally it’s clear that this is not a foul discharge (as a fart) nor is it a rude discharge (like a burp), but one done in a subconscious state.
At any rate, I thought that having separate rooms was very unusual, until I looked into it. It turns out that this is actually quite common in mature people (I cannot yet bring myself to type “older” when I’m discussing myself, however, I don’t think “mature” is any better…oh well). As documented a couple years back in the NY Times, “In a survey in February by the National Association of Home Builders, builders and architects predicted that more than 60 percent of custom houses would have dual master bedrooms by 2015, according to Gopal Ahluwalia, staff vice president of research at the builders association. Some builders say more than a quarter of their new projects already do.”
Of course if you are the one snoring you are blissfully unaware, most of the time. On many occasions my own snoring has awoken me when I’ve dozed off in my office late at night of watching the Daily show at 11:00 pm. Strangely, the times when I’m around large groups of sleeping, older, out-of-shape men (international flights) I don’t recall ever hearing anybody snoring. As a snorer, I’m afraid that I may wake up my fellow passengers who, unlike friends and family, won’t push me to stop it.
When I shared a room at Ironman Canada a couple years back I was awoken by my friend and competitor Matt who’s first words in the morning were “who snores?” (there was a female competitor sleeping in our room too). Well of course it’s the 46 year old guy, not the women! It happened again last summer when I was sharing a room with another cyclist during our Tour de France spain trip, and in that case my roommate simply through some socks at me. He understood it was nothing personal and wanted to go back to sleep.
So to all you “victims of snoring” out there: chill. Sleep somewhere else or find a solution that fits everybody’s needs. It’s nothing personal. If you snore – don’t be ashamed. It’s natural.