Do you need advice? Life Lessons with Lifestyle is here to help! Tell us about your relationship drama, friendship troubles, or moral dilemmas, and one of our writers will give you their two (or three or four) cents. We aren’t therapists or trained professionals — just college students, like you. So, send us a message, and we’ll give your problem our best shot.
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What do you do when your roommate is audibly having sex while you’re trying to study?
Your first instinct, maybe, is to make a big deal out of the situation — loudly knock on the wall, text them, or confront them. But before you do anything like that, hear me out! You can always get earplugs, noise-canceling headphones, or physically remove yourself and find somewhere else to go — no drama necessary!
The truth is, hearing your roommate having sex is just as much a part of the college experience as anything. Just like late nights studying, drunken stumbles home, and panic attacks, it’s something everyone experiences, whether it be you, me, and probably even our parents.
If you’re still feeling uncomfortable, or you find two consenting adults having sex in the privacy of their own room totally unbearable, you could approach the subject just like an RA would! “Hey,” you might say, “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but I often hear you and your partner through the walls. I’m trying to study, could you keep it down?”
This, inevitably, will probably lead to a moment of awkwardness at best, or outright hostility at worst. No good ever comes out of calling out someone else’s lack of awareness. Why bother with all that?
Instead, I would try to be a little more understanding here. If it were me and I was “doing the deed” like your roommate, noise would be the very last thing on my mind. Imagine yourself in their shoes: Would you want to have them pestering you about your intimate activities anytime you got lucky? Instead, why don’t you do your roommate a favor and make yourself scarce? There are plenty of places to study on campus like M.O.M.’s or Geisel Library, and a jar of earplugs from Target is relatively cheap. Plus, you’ll have them for the next time you go to a concert! But if you really must stay and study, abide by a time-tested technique that has never caused me any problems: minding my own business.
