Yep, there’s nothing worse than waiting for a moment alone with your significant other (or the girl you met 20 minutes ago at Rhinos Bar), and having your roommate walk in complaining that he has an exam he has to study for — right then! In the room! Next to your bed! When the library is two blocks away!

Definitely a buzz-kill.

The last time I shared a room was more than a dozen years ago. Bunk beds with the sibling didn’t present much of a problem in 1989; my seven year old brother wasn’t exactly doing a lot of after-hours macking on the ladies (and frankly any nocturnal action I got then consisted of making out with my arm). Yeah, we had a good deal: fight during the day, sleep at night.

In college, most of us do the opposite. And fighting may not only occur in the night, but about things — or people — that go bump in the night. With you there. Trying to sleep. Failing to sleep. Cursing yourself for not getting the squeaky beds removed when you first moved in. Cursing yourself for not being enough of a nutcase to get a medical single. Cursing yourself for not having someone to help you squeak your bed. Vowing to find that person, tomorrow. In your computer science class, if necessary.

The volatile combination of hormones, independence, alcohol and shared living quarters often leads to unintended — and amusing — consequences. Most importantly, at least for those of us who like to gossip, we're left with a lifetime supply of ridiculous stories involving roommates, sex and sometimes even the memorable instances when one sees the former having the latter.

So what’s a horny co-ed — or a sleepless roommate — to do?

“Oh, I can tell you,” my friend Sarah said with the confidence that only a recent graduate holding an impressive four year record of unusual hook ups can muster.

“Hook up in the hallway.”

Yeah … hmm. I’m not sure which hallway Miss Sarah is referring to, but it certainly can’t be the one outside my Nevils apartment, because not only could 34 people walk by within one minute, but I would certainly get a disease from the crud on the carpet (the result of beer and Wisey’s from the last two decades).

“It’s funny how desperate students are to hook up,” said one senior whose roommate had infamously disappeared into the bathroom of their apartment for an entire night with her fling.

Students are renowned for their innovative — sometimes unconventional — solutions to these sorts of problems. Legend has it that the Leavey Esplanade, the benches in Dahlgren Quad and bushes next to White Gravenor have from time to time served as an outlet for frustrated lovers.

Although the outdoors may be attractive for some students, most take their chances in a room with four walls.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the whole “lock your door” thing, although I realize that only works if 1) your door has a lock and 2) your roommate doesn’t have the key.

My friend Colleen insists that the oh-so-subtle placement of a biology book outside the door will cleverly clue in a roommate.  Other stealthy methods include placing a piece of clear scotch tape over the keyhole, signaling the roommate to “Stop! Think! And walk slowly away.”  Unless of course, you’ve done what some guys have, and turned the peephole around. That’s right: you see in, they can’t see out.  But voyeurism is a topic for another day.

Still, it seems that the propensity to engage in licentious activities with others around decreases as one gets older.

“It’s definitely a freshman thing,” insisted one senior.  His on-campus apartment is well known not only for its parties, but for the “sex nooks” in each of the rooms.  Still, he insisted he waits until his roommate has vacated the immediate area, and added, for clarification, “That’s just weird, man.”

My friend Kristy, also a senior, agrees: “Over the years you get smarter about it.  Looking back, I can’t believe what I did with my roommate in the room when I was a freshman.  By junior year I’d hear her breathe and we’d stop!”

While some students fly by the seat of their pants — or lack thereof — others choose to sit down and plan out future indiscretions to the best of their ability.

Last week, a group of my girlfriends in Village B actually had a meeting about the subject. Their conclusion: “Because we have bunked beds and the walls are paper thin, we should try to go to the guy’s room.”  If that proved to be impossible (after all, guys have roommates, too), they agreed to buy a futon for emergency hook-up use.

Others try to plan nights that each roommate “gets” the room. A sophomore I spoke with sputtered “that’s ridiculous,” explaining, “sometimes you just feel like going home with someone — right now, right here. Not tomorrow!”

But what to do with a roomie who just can’t compromise — ever?  One New South freshman I spoke with insists that hooking up with his roommate in the vicinity is “just plain disrespectful. ” After all, there’s always the lounge.  Although he did concede that he might still do it, “but only if I were drunk and really horny.”  Hey, at least he’s honest.

Ultimately, most students want to be understanding, mainly because someday they hope to be in the same position.  Badly.  “I guess you can’t get mad because you know there’s a time you’ll do it to them,” that former uncompromising freshman hedged.

Hey, keep your eyes open and you just may learn something.  Or have a good story to tell.