The other aspect of sleepovers that I miss and crave, and sometimes really need, is the sense of comfort and safety that I get from them.
They are comforting in a deep way to me, dating back to my childhood. I grew up in a family in which I didn’t feel seen and where I was constantly forced to share both physical spaces and relationships (including my own friends) with my younger sister. So sleepovers at my friends’ houses, by myself with my close friends and their family, meant not only fun time with a friend but also a reprieve from an environment that felt hostile and/or stifling to me.
So sleepovers bring back sweet, cozy, warm, comforting, safe memories from my childhood & teenage years.
They also feel comforting and safe to me now, as an adult, from a practical, logistic viewpoint: I often visit friends who live an hour drive away, each way, and when we hang out in the evening there’s the possibility that I might feel too exhausted to drive an hour to get back home, back to safety. It might actually not be safe for me to drive back if I’m too tired. So knowing that I’m visiting a friend on whose couch I can crash or whose bed I can share, gives me a real, tangible sense of safety, an important Plan B, which also allows me to relax more into the time spent together without needing to split my brain in two, to be extra vigilant about where my energy level is (i.e. “do I have enough energy to actually drive for an hour to get home after this?”).
The Little Prince and the Fox 