The best roommate is someone who is never there.
When you first start to live with someone, you should make some sort of arrangement with the other person so they don’t burst into your room.
Anything from a tie, sock or a hotel ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door can help. It has to be something both parties recognize as a symbol that means ‘come back later.’
The most important element of these symbols is that it is small and recognized by only the people who live there. The bat signal would probably be a bad idea – too conspicuous. Sticking one of the campus flyers to your door would probably be an inconspicuous way of alerting a select few to what is going on.
Symbols such as these are important to make a living situation between adults less hostile. This can also be used when one of the roommates wants to be alone, and does not necessarily mean something of a sexual nature is going on.
There are some things your roommate doesn’t need to know about you: like reading western novels in only your underwear and a cowboy hat. Nobody should ever have to walk in on that.
I walked in on that situation once when I lived in a dorm, and it still gives me nightmares.
The’ person I lived with was not the only guilty party. There were things that I did that had nothing to do with sex, but everything to do with needing privacy. Like the time I was trying to shave my back using a disposable razor duck taped to a spatula. People should not have to bear witness to my attempts to shave my back.
The problem with this sort of agreement is that, even though it is an arrangement reached by both roommates, it always seems one person is having more fun in that room than the other.
And it leaves the other roommate doomed to wander about the apartment complex, or dorm room, looking for something to do. This becomes more infuriating when sex is involved.
I would have paid to miss out on western night in my dorm room and gotten the chance to explore the campus at night. But if he had been having sex, I would have felt really put out. There is something about sex that just makes me feel like they can be doing it somewhere other than where I sleep, and I would respect that anyone who lives with me would feel the same.
To avoid this feeling, you can make sure your roommate never has sex by telling anyone that they find attractive that you accidentally used their herpes cream as toothpaste, and were wondering if you should see a doctor. This would be in bad taste, but probably effective.
What should be done is to work out a schedule with your roommate of when you will not be in the apartment. Giving everyone two hours of alone time with out needing to put anything on the door would go along way to improve living arrangements.
This can be time spent studying at a coffee shop, or watching a move. It needs to be respectful time out of the room.
To make this work, you get two hours of the day that you’re not at work or class to do what ever you want by yourself in your room. Have you ever wanted to try yoga in the nude? Here is your chance. Or, you can sit in your room and do nothing but watch reruns of The Adventures of Pete & Pete.
There are three rules to this time alone. You don’t mess with the other person’s stuff. You don’t ask what they are doing and you don’t tell what you are doing. These rules are important, because sometimes the best thing for your roommate is that they never find out what just happened.
