Keep me warm on those cold, lonely nights

There's nothing like waking up next to someone you love. The warmth you feel from knowing you went to sleep together and are going to wake up and read the morning newspaper together while having breakfast is priceless. Of course, the romantic notion of being held all night by that certain someone is violently thrashed out, literally in some cases, by restless partners whose arm falls asleep under the weight of your head cutting off their circulation. Or that "other" arm that has no purpose in the "holding you all night" so it just lies there in an awkward position resulting in that strange scoliosis shape your back takes in the morning. How can you get that warmth without a visit to the chiropractor? Once again, the Japanese are ahead of their time and have put on the market The Boyfriend Pillow. Just a pillow with an arm extension. Many a lonely Japanese women have purchased this item and say it is just what they were looking for: all the benefits, none of the drawbacks.

This creeps me out. It's a one armed polyester filled piece of fabric--no head, just an arm with a Cabbage Patch doll-like hand (and see, it's feeling the chick up in the photo!). *shiver* For $80, that pillow better buy me dinner and take me to the cinema. Do these women *really* think that pillow is gonna keep them from having a cold and lonely night? It's not gonna keep you from being scary cat lady either. It's gonna make you scary cat lady who has an imaginary stuffed boyfriend... with no head! I think the ladies just like the no head aspect of the pillow; she can imagine it is anyone she wants and that "he" never says anything to piss her off.

Creepiness factor aside, I think it is a horrible crutch that prevents women from going out there and actually finding a warm body to sleep with. Modern societal pressures and work ethic present enough obstacles to human interaction and relationship, we don't need to continue to add crutches to keep us from actually talking to people. Ladies, please, I understand some of the "male replacements" you have in your life, but the boyfriend pillow? Just think of this scenario:

You finally land a date with his gorgeous Adonis and he's very into you. You make it back to your apartment, you start making out and then, you head to your bedroom. The lights come on and just as he's thrown you on the bed, he produces a look of horror on his face. He's spotted it *duhn duhn duhn!* Your Boyfriend Pillow. "What the hell is that?!" he cries. "Oh," you reply," that is Eric, my Boyfriend Pillow! *giggle*"

Guess who you're going to be sleeping with that night? No, not Adonis AND Eric! Alone (really) with "Eric," your Boyfriend Pillow. If you want positive feng shui in your bedroom to facilitate a relationship, having an artificial one-armed torso might not motivate you to be open to a living organism who thrashes about, snuggles close to you on cold nights, and even though he feels like it's going to fall off, let's you fall asleep with your head on his arm.

Warming Up To Me
(Jason Mraz)

There's a cool breeze blowing
In a garden grove
A lady learns to sleep
While surrounded, not where all the flowers grow
Otherwise an empty Orchard Street
She is dreaming of her holiday
From a working class menagerie
Oh her hands are cold
Unimaginable cause she warmed right up to me

I'm a passerby in a promise land
And I face no direction
Somewhere between the towns of lost and found
In the state of confusion
Sure our dreaming is pure wonderment
But our feelings are no accident
If my heart is cold it won't forever be
Cause your warming up to loving me

And fate is not a mission
Its an unconditional high
When I saw you in the garden
You reminded me
I can see, the stars are on your shoulders now
And what the wind and your skin have in common
Am I taller? Well if feels as though I'm above the ground
She kept inviting me to come down

Are you warming up?
Are you burning up?
Warming up to love?
Are you warming up to loving me?