My Favorite Half-Night Stand

Millie Morris serves as the novel’s dynamic, round protagonist whose central conflict is her profound fear of emotional vulnerability. A criminology professor, Millie is intellectually sharp and professionally accomplished yet emotionally guarded. Her academic fascination with female serial killers reflects her own psychological state; she prefers to analyze complex human emotions from a detached, scholarly distance rather than experiencing them firsthand. This emotional unavailability is a defense mechanism rooted in her mother’s early death and a subsequent family dynamic that discouraged open communication about difficult feelings. Millie uses humor and a sarcastic “one of the guys” persona to keep others, even her closest friends, from getting too close. Her personal relationships are carefully managed to avoid the kind of intimacy that requires sharing her authentic self. When confronted with personal questions, particularly about her family and ailing father, she consistently deflects, reinforcing the emotional walls she has built.

Millie’s journey is driven by the internal tension between her desire for connection and her fear of the vulnerability it requires, a central concept in the theme of The Necessity of Vulnerability for Intimacy. This conflict crystallizes when she and her best friend Reid Campbell engage in a “half-night stand,” where physical intimacy is divorced from genuine connection, and it is further complicated when, because of the group’s pact to find dates online, she creates an anonymous alter ego named “Catherine.