Ok, I know that this title will attract a lot of readers and that is exactly the point of it as I want as many people to hear about this thing as possible.
I think you are all familiar with Couchsurfing concept already – staying on a couch of a person you basically meet via the website only. You stay there for free and sometimes the person that hosts you will show you around the city if he/she has time. In return I try to cook something or invite the person for lunch/dinner (I don’t like cooking!) or just spend some quality time together.
I use couchsurfing pretty often myself, especially when I have no time to book accommodation or everything seems too expensive. Or when I just want to meet locals and spend time with them. I used it a lot in Thailand, Argentina, Bolivia and many other countries.
my couch back home
But then, many people just confuse it with some online dating or let’s be honest – an easy way of finding someone to sleep with! I mean, WTF?! Are you on the right website?? If that is what you are expecting when letting a person sleep on your couch, than you are hell wrong!
Couchsurfing is for free, you offer your place to stay for free and what you should get from the guest is for free too. Where did you get that instead of saying thank you, you should get a night/nights full of pleasure???
I feel like punching the guy who expects that when I stay on his couch.
Once a guy was hosting me in a big city. I came to his apartment and found out that the ”couch” was just an inflatable matress with no space at all, breathing just against the huge TV or into his face on the bed just next to it. Not fun!
Or some people don’t even have a couch and offer you directly their bed instead. What does it mean to me? Back off!!!
Then, a guy in Argentina I spent talking to for more than a month, even asked for holidays to travel around the area with me for a week. Not even once during that time I gave him any chance of something happening in between us. But yes, I bet you are right now when thinking what happened. I came to his apartment … he was nice in the beginning. But then wanted to kiss me, I said no and his behaviour change completely. He cancelled his holidays, went back to work the following morning, so I decided to leave with a couple I spent traveling with for a few weeks and do the route I planned to do with that guy. As we had to return the rented car in the same town after a few days, he told me to leave my stuff I didn’t need in his house. Believe it or not, he was really nasty when I came back, letting me wait outside of his apartment for 3 hours, then shouting at me and wanting to kick me out with all my things at 1 am. Really??? He must have been really desperate. Pay for sex next time!
I am not that easy. Just because you offer me a free bed/couch to sleep on, I won’t sleep there with you! I get free rooms in hotels and whole apartments. Do you think they want sex in return for that?? NO!
Unfortunately, I am not the only one with those experiences.
Each time I have a conversation with someone about Couchsurfing, they come up with those crazy stories. Even gay stories as well. A hetero friend of mine when visiting Germany was being hit by his gay host. Not fun!
And a few months ago I also got an email about a group of people speaking about some people who force you to sex when using their couch.
After this, I even added a sentence into my Couchsurfing profile: If you are expecting sex in return, don’t even accept my Couch request!!!
But not all the experiences I have had with Couchsurfing were of this kind. Many of them were amazingly great and we are still in touch with many of those people who hosted me!
Has anyone of you had the same experience? Don’t be shy, share it with us in the comments.
Alex
Alex is a crazy Slovak girl who made traveling the reason of her life. In March 2011 she quit her stewardess job and hasn't stopped ever since. Her motto is ''I live to travel, I travel to live.'' She also writes about her crazy travel, fun adventures and sexy photos at www.crazysexyfuntraveler.com.
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I would like to say that I am surprised by your experiences but I am not. What are people thinking? I have not tried couch surfing yet but I am sure that I will in the future.
@ Jeff @ GoTravelzing:
Jeff, what are people thinking? I have no idea! And I even have no bikini photos on my Couchsurfing profile, just all those hiking photos where you can see only my eyes 😀 Good luck with CS in the future 😉
I make it clear in my CS profile – http://www.couchsurfing.org/people/andreas_lawyer/ – that I offer a couch in a separate room because even as a host, I wouldn’t want to have any of my guests feel uncomfortable about this.
@ Alex:
You have a bikini photo right next to saying “I have no bikini photos”. 🙂
@ Andreas Moser:
Andreas, you should make it even more clear saying you don’t need sex in return haha 😛 And that bikini photo you mean the one from far awya where you can hardly see anything? I don’t count that one 😉
I havent tried couch surfing before – but would want to make sure that I was safe staying with the person who asked me to 😉
weird how some hosts think they can ask for extra. Should not be expected but again its a crazy world we live in!
Wow I am shocked that there are people that actually think like that! I’ve never Couchsurfed myself but this has definitely put me off considering it!!
People like that actually exist?! Jeez, what a crazy way to screw up what could be a nice stay with a local to “sex with random travellers”! I hate thinking that some people are actually signing up Couchsurfing just to get lucky, yikes.
@ Aggy:
I know, Aggy, it gives me that blee feeling too!
@ Hayley Wright:
I wish there weren’t people like that! But it happened to both girls and guys, so unfortunately this thing does exist around the world!
@ Lisa Wood:
It is crazy, I agree, but you can never be sure 100% before meeting in person :/
I have experienced this on a few occasions. One of my first experiences with couchsurfing I purposely agreed to stay with a host bc I found him attractive mentally & physically 😉 It is nice meeting people with similar interests. Sometimes there is a connection between two people who meet on couchsurfing but you can not expect a little something/something in return for providing someone a place to stay!!!!
One time I did stay with a couchsurfer who expected me to sleep in his bed (because multiple couchsurfers had already filled him livingroom) and following a night of drinking he decided to try and make a move on me. When I rejected his sexual advances he asked, “why they F*ck are you here then?”
…EXCUSE ME!?!
I was very thrown off by this and did my best to defuse the situation and just went to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. Luckily he was not hostile or very persistent; it was 3am & I surely wouldnt have known where else to go!
The next day he apologized and I would like to think that alcohol impaired his judgement & he does not normal act this way to other couchsurfers!!!!
@ Elizabeth:
Well, Elizabeth, unfortunately that question WHY THE F*** ARE YOU HERE THEN? I heard from many CS hosts!
I haven’t tried couchsurfing yet, but I slept in houses of people I met through blogging. Such unfortunate for you to experience those 😐
@ Micamyx|Senyorita:
Well, Mica, you know my luck haha
When I was looking for a place to stay through CS in Paris it seemed that pretty much all the people on the Paris site were just after someone to sleep with. I guess at least they were open about it – along the lines of, ‘yes, there’s only one bed and you’ll be sharing it with me …’ It would be worse to turn up somewhere thinking that their intentions were honourable and to find out that they weren’t when you have nowhere else to go …
@ Katja:
You are right, Katja. I would much prefer if all those people wrote it in their profile so I could refuse it straight away 😀 But I am surprised. I stayed with 1 guy in Paris 2 years ago, I had my own room, he never said anything inappropriate nor tried anything – one of the few 😀
uhh I’m a guy, be scared! 😛
well everyone who is shocked about this is quite naive, honestly. Everywhere on the world are assholes (also women btw. a brasilian girl once tried to get sex of my male friend, which he refused). Since Couchsurfing is big, of course there are assholes too, quite simple 🙂
its never simple as a hot girl, cuz alway guys will want to hit you. for that im glad im a guy. haha 😛 no serious. all you can do is try to surf at places that have enough positive references and make it clear in the request that you wont do any erotic favor. then they dont even have to accept you. hopefully 😉
well i have 60 references and as far as i know, i never insulted any chick. because for me its wrong. i wouldnt like it either if i surf at a ugly chick and she would try to get in my pants -.- or a gay guy, iuuu ^^
must admit when a girl i like also shows interest in me, i flirt on =) it happen and we both were happy 🙂
what I’m tryin to say is, dont blame couchsurfing on general. there are black sheeps, but there are also awesome host with whom you will have great fun =)
@ aemer:
Aemer, I know there are ”assholes” (like you said) everywhere. And I really wish my statement on my CS profile about not expecting any sex nor anything similar for letting me stay at their couch, would work! Because unfortunately, it does not. But of course, not everyone is like that!
[…] Alexandra Kovakova of We Travel Around the World writes about one of the big problems of couchsurfing – Sex and Couchsurfing […]
I guess they dont read your profile, they just look at your pictures 😉 Thats why I included a password in my couchdescription, so i can tell who read it and who not =)
@ aemer:
Maybe you are right, but anyway, my photos on my CS profile are pretty normal.