Angela Poppe '00 had not gone far from her dormitory room when she realized she had forgotten her ID card. When she returned to look for it, she found more than she bargained for.
Sprawled on her bed were her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend, "fooling around." Although the pair were fully clothed, the experience was enough to convince Poppe and her roommate to form a pact. Now Poppe's roommate tells her whenever her boyfriend will be visiting.
Poppe and her roommate are hardly the only students who have found that three can be a crowd. It is common practice for students, especially women, to make agreements about when significant others are welcome.
"Just about all the girls on my floor have had to set up some kind of agreement," Poppe said.
Roommates with relationships can make life in a two-room double uncomfortable. Erin Gross '99, who lived in the inner room of a two-room double, said she walked in on her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend once or twice when returning to her room at night.
After several mishaps, the pair agreed Gross's roommate would put a scrunchy on the doorknob when her boyfriend was spending the night. But, Gross said, the signal was not really necessary.
"We were like best friends," she said. "We got to the point where we knew."
Some students have more formal arrangements with their roommates. Lia Monahon '98 said both she and her roommate have boyfriends. But they have been able to avoid getting up close and personal with the other significant others.
"We share a room, and we alternate nights," Monahon said. She said her system works, but warned that students who do not have regular schedules may run into problems.
One female senior, who asked to remain anonymous, said she started to walk in while her roommate was having sex.
"They were doing something in the room, and I didn't know they were doing something, so I just stuck the key in and they told me to wait."
The woman said she did not realize her roommate was having sex in their double until her roommate explained the situation later. "I was kind of slow on that," she said. "I thought they were having a discussion."
She spoke with her roommate and agreed not to come into the room if her roommate wrote an 'X' on the message board on their door, an indication she and her boyfriend were having sex.
However, this agreement did not solve all their problems.
"I usually changed in the room after I took a shower," the senior said. "Sometimes he would knock on the door and my roommate would forget I was changing."
The senior said she did not enjoy sharing her 197 square foot double with her roommate's beau.
"I didn't really like him," she said. "He's really arrogant." The mismatched pair eventually learned to deal with the situation by avoiding being in the room at the same time.
Some students said they do not have to worry about walking in on their roommates and significant others. Adam Cowburn '00, who lives in a triple, said he does not expect to see his roommate's significant other anytime soon because of his roommate's living habits.
"His room's a mess," Cowburn said. "It's really sloppy."
