You fight to keep your eyes open as you take the elevator up to your room. As you round the corner and get closer to your room you grow more excited to kick off your shoes, peel those skinny jeans off your legs (you swear they weren’t this tight when you bought them…) and take a one way ticket to Snoozetown.

And then you see it. Scribbled on the dry erase board tacked to your door: come back later.

The writing is messy, but the message is loud and clear. Your roommate’s got someone in there and you are not welcome.

Angry, you stand there for a few moments taking it all in. It’s late on a weeknight. Everyone else is already asleep. And how long have they been in there?  Where the hell are you supposed to go? When can you come back?

You scan the hallway. Yup, everyone’s doors are closed and the hall is quiet. You are going to have to find somewhere else to pass the time. You take the elevator back down to the study room on your dorm’s main floor. You’re exhausted, but you decide you’ll do a bit more reading and try the room again in a half hour.

When you walk in you find another student in there reading on a couch.

“You too?” You ask. She nods.

You head towards one of the over-stuffed chairs but reconsider and move towards a table. The last thing you want is to get too comfortable and fall asleep down here. You unpack your textbook, grab a highlighter and start reading. But after getting through 3 pages and realizing you have no idea what you just read, you close the book and start chatting it up with your fellow Sexilee. You vent, you complain, you commiserate. Then you see a boy walk past in the hallway and, thinking that must be the man of the evening, take that as your cue to head back upstairs.

When you approach the door you notice the note is still on the dry erase board but you reason that your roommate must have forgotten to wipe it off. To be safe, you knock. You hear some giggling.

“Come back in five minutes!” Your roommate calls from inside.

“Come on! It’s late!” You call. You know you sound ridiculous, but you just want to go to sleep, damnit.

“Five minutes!” You’re tempted to throw open the door and break up the little party, but the fear of seeing some guy’s bare butt stops you. So you put your bag on the floor, pop a squat and wait it out.

Not five, but fifteen minutes later, the music stops and the door opens. Startled (it seems you have dozed off) you jump up. Your roommate laughs and shoos her guest towards the elevator. You gather your things and drag yourself towards your bed. Finally, you can get some sleep.

Well, after your roommate gives you the 20 minute rundown of her evening romp, that is.

—

Yeah, we’ve all been there.
It’s annoying, it’s infuriating…but it feels DAMN good when you can get sweet Sexile revenge.

Freshman year is an incredible experience. For many, it’s the first taste of Keystone freedom, the first foray into frat parties out into the world. You‘ll drink with meet people from all walks of life. You’ll quickly wonder how you ever survived without your newfound friends.

But be warned: for every awesome new friend that you make, you’ll find yourself face to face with an enemy. Not a “sleep with one eye open” enemy; more like a “OMG I want to gouge out my eyes whenever you come near me” type.

Here are my personal picks for people to avoid:

The “Busy” Roommate- The first parent-free weekend, I was woken up by the rhythmic creaking of my roommate’s lofted bed. The second week of classes, I was woken up on Thursday night by a guy pounding on the door looking for her around 3 A.M, and she came in the following morning trailing a (different) guy from my English class. If you’re really lucky, you won’t be woken up like I was – you’ll be permanently sexiled. It’s not like you need to get into your room or anything, right?

The Bad RA- A good RA should have a balance of helpfulness and friendliness. She’s not supposed to be your best friend, but she’s also not supposed to be so aloof that you can’t relate to her either. Some RAs are overzealous, which can be more than a little annoying; like the RA who refused to start the floor meeting until all forty girls were present, even though the missing person had a legitimate reason for her absence. Even worse, though, was the RA who was so high he didn’t notice that there was an orgy going on in my friend’s room, nor did he realize my friend was out in the hall with a pillow at 4 A.M because he was trying to figure out where he could get some sleep.

The Sporadic Professor- This professor is out to prove you’re no longer in high school by giving you regular and difficult assignments. But, in order to make sure you do them, he’ll only grade them sporadically. It doesn’t sound as bad now, but it will be when you finally decide to skip on the ONE day he decides to check.

The Neighbor With the Subwoofer- Okay, I love music as much as the next person, and I love blasting it whenever I can. However, when you’re living in a building with other people, there are certain courtesies to be paid. Like not blasting your music on a crazy bass system that shakes surrounding walls, floors, and ceilings….at 11pm…during finals. This is grounds for justifiable homicide.

The Extremely Messy/Neat Roommate- Either extreme can be deadly, depending on what you’re like. I’ve seen these two paired together before and and it was the closest I’ve ever seen to an in-your-face war. If your roommate falls into one of these two categories, you will definitely have a problem. You’ll either want to strangle her for those passive-aggressive comments about how neat and tidy her side of the room is, or you’ll want to strangle her anytime her crap (read: dirty undies) creeps over to your side..

The Peter Pan Queen Bee- This girl has somehow managed to establish herself as the Queen Bee of the group/hall/floor. She chooses who’s worthy of hanging out with her and her followers, and is fickle about who she keeps around. Essentially, she hasn’t gotten the memo that high school is over. As a result, your grown-up college life will be fraught with the exact same drama you thought you’d left behind – petty gossip, rules about who you can and can’t socialize with, backstabbing, and other not-so-fun pastimes.

Crazy Drunk Naked Guy- Okay, so this one may not drive you crazy in the same way, but I do promise it will scar you for life. This guy is the reason you are warned repeatedly to double and triple-check your locks at night. The one night my roomie and I didn’t, a drunk, high, naked guy showed up in our room after relieving himself in the hallway, then refused to leave. Variations of the Crazy Drunk Naked Guy include 2 A.M streakers, the frat boy who peed in the fridge, and the guy who stood in the doorway watching the girls sleep.

Um no.

You’re still young and you do not need to turn into an old, married couple. You’ll have your entire post-grad life to do that. Instead you’re going to have to make an active effort to keep the sparks going. You can easily host a sexy sleepover — complete with sexiling your roommate — any night of the week.

Or you can keep it even more exciting by surprising your boyfriend with any of these 5 little tricks.

And don’t forget that a healthy relationship isn’t all about the sex. It’s about spending time with your beloved partner. If you’re unsure of how to break the pattern of watching lame movies with him every week, check out 101 ways to keep the romance alive.

You fight to keep your eyes open as you take the elevator up to your room. As you round the corner and get closer to your room you grow more excited to kick off your shoes, peel those skinny jeans off your legs (you swear they weren’t this tight when you bought them…) and take a one way ticket to Snoozetown.

And then you see it. Scribbled on the dry erase board tacked to your door: come back later.

The writing is messy, but the message is loud and clear. Your roommate’s got a boy in there and you are not welcome.

Angry, you stand there for a few moments taking it all in. It’s late on a weeknight. Everyone else is already asleep. And how long have they been in there?  Where the hell are you supposed to go? When can you come back?

You scan the hallway. Yup, everyone’s doors are closed and the hall is quiet. You are going to have to find somewhere else to pass the time. You take the elevator back down to the study room on your dorm’s main floor. You’re exhausted, but you decide you’ll do a bit more reading and try the room again in a half hour.

When you walk in you find another student in there reading on a couch.

“You too?” You ask. She nods.

You head towards one of the over-stuffed chairs but reconsider and move towards a table. The last thing you want is to get too comfortable and fall asleep down here. You unpack your textbook, grab a highlighter and start reading. But after getting through 3 pages and realizing you have no idea what you just read, you close the book and start chatting it up with your fellow Sexilee. You vent, you complain, you commiserate. Then you see a boy walk past in the hallway and, thinking that must be the man of the evening, take that as your cue to head back upstairs.

When you approach the door you notice the note is still on the dry erase board but you reason that your roommate must have forgotten to wipe it off. To be safe, you knock. You hear some giggling.

“Come back in five minutes!” Your roommate calls from inside.

“Come on! It’s late!” You call. You know you sound ridiculous, but you just want to go to sleep, damnit.

“Five minutes!” You’re tempted to throw open the door and break up the little party, but the fear of seeing some guy’s bare butt stops you. So you put your bag on the floor, pop a squat and wait it out.

Not five, but fifteen minutes later, the music stops and the door opens. Startled (it seems you have dozed off) you jump up. Your roommate laughs and shoos her boy towards the elevator. You gather your things and drag yourself towards your bed. Finally, you can get some sleep.

Well, after your roommate gives you the 20 minute rundown of her evening romp, that is.

Yeah, we’ve all been there.
It’s annoying, it’s infuriating…and it feels good when you can get sweet Sexile revenge.

But All Hallow’s Eve isn’t just about costumes and candy—there’s been a lot of seriously scary stuff happening this week. And yes, technically it was the last week of September and only the first few days of October… but just go with my metaphor. Among the frightening things we’ve written about in the past seven days:

- Spencer and Heidi are buying a house together, probably so that they’ll have a place to raise a litter of devil-spawn with flesh-colored beards and fake boobs.

- Speaking of fake boobs, girls from “Rock of Love Bus” make $1,500 just for showing up at parties.

- The length of the school year might get extended. I’m shuddering just thinking about it.

- In my three-plus years of college, I’ve probably had every single one of these awful professors.

- The scary smart kids at Caltech and MIT, who might accidentally kill us all with a wacky prank gone wrong…

- … unless they all get Type Geek Diabetes first.

- Tufts outlawing having sex while your roommate’s in your room, which isn’t scary in itself but will lead to some seriously horrifying conversations between Tufts students and their parents.

- Guys who do nothing but eat chicken nuggets while watching football, playing poker, and quoting “Old School.”

- Going through the nail-biting experience of wondering if he, like, likes you likes you.

- Everything about this post, which makes me want to vomit in terror.

- And most frightening of all: you only have three more days to win a laptop from CC!

If you want to converse or understand what is goin’ on around you, you are going to need to learn the language. Here are some words you should get used to hearing and using for the next 4 (or more) years.

Sexile- The act of being forced to leave your dorm so your roommate can engage in a hookup/sex.

Dormcest/ Dorm Whore- When one becomes romantically/sexually involved with a student occupying the same residence hall or floor.(Note: This is some many college goers do NOT recommend, so date at your own risk)

Walk of Shame- A little trip one takes from the site of a hook-up back to their own place. This is usually done at an ungodly hour while clothes that looked cute the night before but are now wrinkled and smell like a mix of spilled PBR and Axe. Also known as Shame Walk or Sex Walk

Kegger- A party that features a keg. Unless this party is greek-endorsed, expect to pay money to get in.

PJ (Party Juice)- An alcoholic juice that can be made with various types of liquors, sodas and juices. Make sure to ask what’s in the juice before sipping, because some people like to make their pj strong (read: a whole fifth of Everclear). Also known as Jungle Juice.

Sausage Fest- A party where the guy to girl ratio is about 5:1. Unless your entire school has a ratio like this, leave soon. Also known as a Brodeo.

LUG- Lesbian Until Graduation. This the female whom you’ll find flirting with every girl at parties until she can manipulate (or intoxicate) one into going home with her for a little girl-on-girl action. She’s all for gay rights and marriage until she walks across the stage in May and begins post-college life. Years later you can find her married (to a man of course) and telling her buddies how her tendency to like girls was “just a phase.”

Sororstitute- A female whose life revolves around her membership to a greek letter organization. Upon pledging she will desert her non-greek friends for her new ones. This type of female can be spotted on campus with her fellow sororstitutes wearing some combination of Greek-lettered sweatshirts, tees, or tote bags, North Faces, boat shoes, Uggs, and bug-eyed sunglasses. (Note: I have no problem with greek letter orgs, just people who join and forget that life does exist outside of the Panhellenic Council)

Got any other words we should add to our College Language flashcards?

[Photo courtesy of Webster's]

Suddenly, you and your roommate are juggling class schedules, study time, piles of laundry, the remote control, and trying to throw intimate time with a guy into the mix. It can be rough, but it can be done. You just need to remain respectful of your roommate, and follow some simple steps to sexile (and be sexiled) without spitefully poking pinholes in each other’s condoms.

1. Have “The Talk.”

Tell your roommate what’s going on. If you move in, and you’re already in a relationship, be honest. Tell her your boyfriend will be coming up one weekend a month, and ask if you can arrange some private time in the room. If you’re single but have a prospect, tell your roommate that you have a date on Friday and ask if she has plans, just in case.

Do not get separated at a party and call your roommate at 3 a.m. to tell her you’re already stumbling home with a boy in tow.

2. Likewise, Keep Score

If you make a habit of bringing home a random guy every weekend and kicking out your roomie, it won’t take long before she’s requesting a housing swap. It’s okay to have a one-night stand, but don’t make your roommate suffer for your own promiscuous needs. She’s more apt to be understanding if she knows she’s giving up the living space so you can spend some QT with your boyfriend, or so you can finally have some alone time with the guy you’ve been crushing on all semester. This goes with rule #1, but she’s probably going to get annoyed if you point out a frat boy at a party and slur, “Can I have the room for a couple of hours?”

Also, if you are sexiling her several times a week, but have never been sexiled yourself, you are being selfish. If this is the case, you may want to read the next rule…

3. Explore All Options

Does it always have to be in your room? Can you steal away to a different hotspot, e.g. his room/apartment/house, the football field, the backseat of his Volvo, whatever? Changing locations will not only make things better for you and the roomie, but it might also spice things up for you and your mate.

If it does have to be in your room, ask if there’s a place she can go so she’s not totally out in the cold. After all, you’re already following rule #1 and having “The Talk.” Maybe she’s cool with crashing on a friend’s futon. Maybe she has her own plans. While it’s not her responsibility to find alternative living arrangements (for the time being), there might be a comparable solution.

4. Try to be Convenient

Kicking her out on a Monday? Maybe not the most considerate thing. Asking her for a few hours when she’s elbows deep in midterms? Pretty selfish. Telling her you’ll be doing the no-pants dance the weekend her parents are coming up to visit? Seriously, get a hold of your libido.

One year, I was told that I had to vacate my room for the duration of Valentine’s Day weekend. That may have seemed reasonable to my roommate and her boyfriend, but I was single and had some single girlfriends coming up to get rip-roaring sloshed. So, my girls and I were homeless while my roommate and her boyfriend had a “romantic” weekend of bunk bed boning. That really irked me. If he was a real Romeo, couldn’t he have sprung for a hotel room? But I digress.

5. Mind the Noise Level

If you have a suite with a common area that is separate from your bedroom and you’ve banished your roommate to the couch for a few hours, make sure she can’t hear you. She knows what’s going in there, but she doesn’t need an audio reminder while she’s being kind enough to catch up on “A Shot of Love” reruns until you’re spent.

6. Don’t Invade ANY Personal Bubbles

This includes the two biggest no-no’s of hooking up in a shared space:

NEVER hook up while she’s in the room and NEVER, EVER do it in her bed. This should go without saying, but come on, we all do stupid stuff when we’re drunk, and throwing hormones into a sh*tshow can equal some VERY bad decisions. It’s also a good idea to shy away from fooling around in shared spaces (read: no BJ’s on the common room sofa). If she catches wind of how you’ve left your scarlet letter on the desk she writes her papers on, she will resent you long after you’ve both moved out and moved on.

When in doubt, use your best judgment and remember what your teachers told you in kindergarten: treat others the way you would want to be treated.

Just remember: a quickie only lasts a few minutes, but you have to live with your roommate 24/7.