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Reader question: Please explain “strange bedfellows”, as in this sentence - Cooperation and self-interest are strange bedfellows. My comments: Cooperation means people working alongside, with and for one another. Self-interest means safeguarding and advancing one’s personal interest, making the most for oneself or, in still plainer words, just being selfish. Obviously if one chooses to cooperate with another, one cannot always put one’s own self-interest first and foremost. In other words, one must curb one’s desire to gain at one’s partner’s expense. That’s why it is strange to see “cooperation” and “self-interest” work together for a common cause because these two inherently have nothing in common. Anyways, the phrase “strange bedfellows” means two people (or things) of totally different qualities and principles working closely together as bedfellows, which is odd (strange) to see. Bedfellows, of course, are people who share the same bed, meaning they must be very close. We often hear “politicians make strange bedfellows.” That means politicians will do anything to succeed, ready to try all means and measures, fair or foul, including working with their hateful political enemies if they have something to gain from such an alliance. In other words, it’s pure opportunism on display. In this country, the Communists and the Guomintang, remember? They couldn’t share the same sky, so to speak, but they managed somehow to cooperate not once, not twice but thrice. | 
