Oddly enough, your experience with CouchSurfing very much matches my initial experience with AirBnb, back in the days when they were still small.
My experience with CouchSurfing, on the other hand, was weird. When me and my roommates (3 guys, 2 girls) signed up our shared house (in waking distance of a touristic city center), we were expecting to see lots of backpackers and tourists our age. Instead, most of our guest requests were middle-aged women with a strong urge to point out how adventurous they were feeling. I believe we not once had a guest request from a guy.
That is indeed very unusual, I've never heard of an experience like that! I wonder what happened, maybe they were all part of a group or something?
Middle aged women make up a very small percentage of Couchsurfing, and when I see them they're usually hosts only. I get a ton of requests, and I think it'd be more likely for me to get a message from an astronaut than two middle aged women.
I just checked my references and my friends' references and didn't find one woman over 40. I really wonder what happened in your case!
Did you ever actually meet an astronaut through couchsurfing?
The weirdest stay-over that I ever had was a Korean religious pilgrimage who mistook me for a monk because apparently one had lived in my apartment before I moved in.
Not an astronaut but a couple who had been working on the Antarctic (he was a driver, she was working in the kitchens/cafe/bar) during the summer season.
They had loads of really interesting stories and it sounded fascinating. They'd talked about how those who had done the winter season (24 hours of pitch blackness for 4 months) were all a little bit on edge and twitchy.
My experience with CouchSurfing, on the other hand, was weird. When me and my roommates (3 guys, 2 girls) signed up our shared house (in waking distance of a touristic city center), we were expecting to see lots of backpackers and tourists our age. Instead, most of our guest requests were middle-aged women with a strong urge to point out how adventurous they were feeling. I believe we not once had a guest request from a guy.