Dear Jane,
My roommate and I are relatively close. She isn’t my best friend, but we watch TV shows, cook together and often go out with each other’s friends.
Last weekend, she was away on vacation and I decided to host a group at our apartment for drinks before heading out to a bar.
But, before we left, things got pretty rowdy and everyone was really drunk.
One of my friends decided to do a last-minute outfit change and we went into my room so she could borrow my clothes.
Dear Jane: I drunkenly did something unforgivable in my roommate’s bed… Do I have to come clean?
As she drunkenly undressed, she stumbled and spilled her full glass of vodka cranberry all over my white sheets.
It looked like a bloodbath and everything was so sticky. But there was no time to do laundry, so we all left and I planned to clean up the mess when I got home.
Fast forward to the end of the night: I was very drunk and bumped into an ex of mine at the bar.
I suggested that we go back to my place – completely forgetting about the vodka cranberry incident.
So, when I arrived home and remembered my bed was still soaking wet, I had to make a quick decision.
To my shame, I decided not to make my ex wait a few minutes while I changed the sheets – and, instead, whisked him off to my roommate’s bedroom.
You can guess what happened next…
When I woke up the next morning with him next to me, both naked, I was filled with immediate regret.
My roommate is a total neat freak and she would be disgusted if she knew what I’d done.
I was considering washing her sheets but she has a very specific method of cleaning her bedding and will notice if I do the laundry, then be suspicious and I’ll have to explain what happened.
She’s returning from vacation soon and I fear that she might notice that someone else has slept in her bed. I’m horrified by the thought of allowing her to unknowingly sleep in bed that I had sex in.
Should I keep quiet and hope she doesn’t realize, or come clean and risk our relationship — and her trust in me?
From,
Sex Sheets
International best-selling author Jane Green offers sage advice on readers’ most burning issues in her agony aunt column
Dear Sex Sheets,
Do the damn washing. You cannot possibly leave unclean sheets for your roommate to come home to.
As a rule, I detest lying. However, there is a way here for you to avoid divulging the whole story. But you do have to tell her something, because – trust me – she will know.
The simplest explanation can omit certain details without being false.
Leave out the fact that you slept in the bed with someone else and that you were naked (which may well tip her over the edge).
We all do stupid things whilst drunk, and your roommate may be a neat freak but she’s also human and surely understands that everyone is fallible.
If you mention that someone else slept in the bed with you, her first question will be whether or not you had sex. Instead, simply explain that the glass of vodka cranberry was spilled, that you forgot to clean it up and crashed in her room when you returned home because you were too drunk to change the bedding.
It might be nice to add her favorite flowers or chocolate to your explanation as a further apology, and tell her that it will not happen again.
And honestly, this should not happen again.
I don’t know your age, but I presume that you are in your twenties given the series of mishaps, all fueled by alcohol.
So allow me to give you some advice: If you are old enough to be living in an apartment with a roommate, you are old enough to understand that your roommate’s room is private, and that you should not have entered it while she was away, for any reason at all.
That was a huge breach of her trust, with or without the whole ‘sex in her bed’ situation.
Expect her to be upset, make sure you are sufficiently apologetic and, when you tell her this will never happen again, mean it.
I also want to touch briefly on a throwaway line in your letter about waking up naked next to your ex and instantly feeling regret.
I don’t know if that regret was due to having sex in your roommate’s bed, or because you’d had sex with an ex. Either way, this situation is a wake-up call for you to examine the repercussions of binge drinking.
As fun as these crazy nights may feel in the moment, the consequences – be they casual flings, possibly unprotected sex, or betraying your roommate – can be costly.
Far better for you to prevent these kinds of situations happening before they start.