By Nina KimPLAY Columnist
After a satisfying dinner, you both decide to go back to his place to perhaps “watch a movie.” While feigning interest in his DVD collection, he puts on some music and takes off his watch. It was a successful third date, and there’s really only one thing on both of your minds right now.
You sit on his bed, and he joins you. After some small talk, an innocuous peck turns into a deeply passionate kiss. Intense breathing and manic removal of clothing ensue as you run your fingers through his hair and he caresses the nape of your neck.
One thing leads to another, and both of you get so caught up in the moment that neither of you hear the footsteps outside the door. The door opens and your date’s absentminded housemate walks in.
“Hey, do you know where the…oh shit! My bad!”
You scream and run for cover under the comforter, but it’s too late. The damage has been done. Your date’s housemate has seen a bit shy of everything.
Sharing a room or living together can make you long for the days when you had your own room and a proper door lock that kept everyone out of it when sexytime was going on.
Some weekends your parents would go out of town, and you had the whole house to yourself – that was pretty sweet. Or even parking your car in a dark spot in the forest preserve parking lot gave you all the privacy you needed – unless the local cops, who had nothing better to do in the sleepy suburban town you’re from, snuck up on you and tried to bust you for underage drinking and/or substance abuse.
Roommates sharing a room is the most difficult situation because both of you have keys to the room. Housemates sharing a house isn’t that bad if you have your own room with a locked door. However, being college students, sometimes our living situations are less than ideal. Living rooms become bedrooms, curtains become doors or someone’s room becomes a hallway to the front door.
Shared living space with ill-defined boundaries inevitably sets you up for awkward walk-ins by your roommates/housemates, but the question of the matter is which party feels the most uncomfortable: the walk-inners or the walked-in-ons. Obviously, the naked probably feel more vulnerable in that situation, but the hilarity of the misadventure should not be overlooked.
The only thing you can do in that type of circumstance is to just laugh it off. Neither party saw it coming, and a little flesh is nothing to be mortified about. The innocuous interruption could even serve to ease the nervousness you might be feeling about the imminent romp in the sack.
Of course, preventative measures can be taken. Communicate with your house/roommates if you’re going to be bringing your date back, and be respectful of closed doors and curtains. The room/housemates should be apologetic and acknowledge the fact that they walked in, but it’s nothing to get mad over.
Sex happens, whether you walk in on it or not. Don’t make it a bigger deal than it has to be.
Medill junior Nina Kim is a PLAY sex columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].
