Think You Might Feel Awkward During a Snuggle Session? At Least You Don't Have to Cuddle Someone in a Tail Suit
There's more than one reason why someone that was enthusiastic about scheduling a professional snuggling may suddenly decide they don't want a session after all. While I completely understand people that want to be in their comfort zone if they do a session, the fact of the matter is you're probably doing something outside of your comfort zone just by looking into a professional snuggling service. Despite the overwhelming media covering professional snuggling and its legitimacy, there's still a lot of people out there that have never heard of this service, have no idea what it entails, or thinks it's a front for something more risque (if you haven't figured out by now, it's not).
One of the most common hangups I hear from potential clients? They feel like they might be too awkward in general during the session and make me uncomfortable. But I can guarantee you that as an ex-engineer, self-proclaimed nerd, and someone that ran into almost every navigate social etiquette mine growing up, it is really, really, REALLY hard to make me uncomfortable (that is not a challenge).
However, I always fall back on one particular experience that had to be, hands-down, one of the most awkward snuggling experiences I've had. It was the appointment my client wore a tailsuit for the session.
With permission from the snugglee (and with full understanding from both of us that yes, this was hilarious in hindsight and it's okay to poke fun at), I am releasing this story to the public.
I was just a few months in doing snuggling part time around my schedule and I was trying to balance my full time job along with this gig and my own social life, and I had no idea how to manage my calendar. This particular client-- we'll cal him Jim-- was only in town for the week on business. He was nervous about a meeting with a bunch of clients and how to not be awkward about it. We had tried scheduling earlier in the week so he could calm down before the big meeting, but my weekdays had me tied up at a construction job site and I couldn't get home and cleaned up in time to work with him in a timely manner. He suggested early mornings, which I couldn't do, and the date got closer to his big meeting and we still couldn't schedule something. I didn't know how to just let it go and not rush trying to schedule a session if the timing just wasn't going to work, and he was determined to do this before he had to meet with his clients. Finally we settled on Thursday night-- the same evening he was supposed to meet with his clients.
I arrived at his hotel early, sat down in the lobby, and texted him that I was here. He came down... in a full-on tail suit. Normally this wouldn't have looked so bad if I was also dressed well, but here I was in the lobby meeting a man in a tail suit in my pajama bottoms and a tank top with a zip-up sweatshirt on, still too new to think of changing in the bathroom when I get to a hotel appointment (I also learned to ask if they'll be coming straight from formal/semiformal business meetings so I look in place when I meet up with them).
I was thinking maybe he would change out of the suit to cuddle. He did not want to. He wanted to stay in this suit so he could go straight to his clients once we were done. Okaaaaay, I thought. How do I do this without wrinkling it?
Everything about the session that ensued was uncomfortable-- he was anxious and moved around a lot in his stuffy, stiff suit. He had his tail suit jacket on (which he wouldn't take off even when I told him he could), and I tried not to wrinkle his shirt when I laid my head on him. He was covered pretty well, so any touch I gave him he couldn't even feel because of the layers he wore. I don't know how he wasn't sweating through all of them.
In the end we decided to lay next to each other on our backs and let him talk out his anxiety about his clients, which I count as a net win for helping him but a complete failure for cuddling. I wish I remember the details of the entire meeting, but I got the impression that this was his first time meeting them in person after several emails back and forth, and he was the least experienced of his colleagues and didn't want to make too much of a fool of himself when they went to the theater. At the end of the session, I left the hotel and he took five more minutes to double check his look before he bolted down to meet his clients like he didn't just attempt to cuddle with a professional snuggler while wearing a tail suit.
The next day he thanked me and then apologized many times for his awkwardness and reassured me the session's weird nature was not my fault. He also told me that he thinks the meeting with his clients went well. I told him everything that happened was completely okay, that next time he's in Boston he's welcome to work with me again in anything more comfortable than what he did this time. We both got a good laugh out of it and he agreed that the next time he's in Boston he'll shoot me a message. He hasn't come back since unfortunately... which personally makes me sad because I wanted to show off how much better I've gotten at handling situations like this.
So just remember the next time you feel awkward about the idea of hiring a professional snuggler... at least you're not trying to cuddle in a tail suit.
