I live in a townhouse on my college campus with 3 other guys. One of my roommates (Jake, changed name for privacy) tends to get bothered by any level of noise in the house, and he lives directly across from my bedroom.
Last semester, my girlfriend (Angela, again changed name) and I were having sex one night. I’ll admit we were being a bit loud that night. I saw the next morning that he texted me asking me to keep it down since he could hear. I apologized and told him I’ll make sure to be quieter. A week or 2 later we had sex here again, and made sure to be as quiet as possible (so much so to the point where I was checking my phone every minute or so to make sure we were quiet enough). We couldn’t have been any quieter short of not having sex. He still texted us saying he could hear us. His door was WIDE open, and he didn’t have headphones in or anything. We got into a bit of an argument that ended with him basically saying it just makes him uncomfortable since its “like hearing your parents have sex”.
A couple days later my other roommates were joking around saying “wow must be nice to be having consistent sex”. Jake muttered under his breath “yeah must be nice”. After hearing that I sort of feel like it’s a jealousy thing since he doesn’t have sex much in his relationship. The problem is, now Angela doesn’t feel comfortable having sex here because no matter how quiet we are, he’ll complain. She even said she’s afraid to make out with me in my room because he might hear and think we’re having sex. She also feels uncomfortable because he leaves his door wide open, so it almost feels like he’s purposely listening so he can complain. It’s starting to put strain on my relationships with my other roommates because I’m always at her place where we can have sex without him complaining. I feel stuck and don’t know what to do here.
20 comments
It’s your townhouse too. You pay rent and have the right to do whatever you want, as long as you’re not being overly loud and disturbing. If he texts you again about the noise, tell him you’ve been trying to be extremely quiet and that naturally there has to be SOME noise. He can close his door or put in headphones. If it bothers him that much, you can also suggest that you’ll let him know when you need some alone time in the apartment
Few things.
You are allowed to bang in your own bedroom at a reasonable volume. Others in the house will need to understand that hearing sex sounds is a minor annoyance of sharing a living space with others especially in college.
You or your roommate can always move out or look for different roommates. Your gf is allowed to feel uncomfortable and decide to cease sexual activity in your apartment. You should not feel slighted by this and respect her choice to want to have some privacy.
You two could move out together and bang as loud as you want to.
Personally, I’d move out.
Well yeah, this situation would make anyone uncomfortable. “Angela” has the appropriate response here. But not sure why your roommates would even care if you’re at her place all the time. Your absence just means more space for them while you’re away. Just keep going to her place and don’t worry about it. No sane roommate ever complained that another roommate wasn’t home enough.
*How* is it putting strain on your relationships with your roommates? They’re angry they don’t see you as often? That’s really weird. Your gf has the right idea, go where you’ll have privacy and no creepy roommate to listen and complain.
I stay with my daughter quite a lot and she’s not comgortable that I might hear. She’d entirely comfortable telling me to bugger off and ride my motorbike bike for an hour.
Tell him when your gf is there to put his headphones on or you play music to drown out the noises you might make. You pay your share and your gf shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable about this.
Nah if you guys are actively trying to be quiet then your roommate(s) don’t really have a leg to stand on. Especially if this goof has his door wide open. Has jealousy written all over it.
And honestly, unless you’re boning after 10PM they don’t have reason to complain about the noise unless it is quite loud. Making noise in non-sleep hours is literally fine and you aren’t breaching any sort of rental agreement by doing it.
It sounds like he just doesn’t want to hear it at all. In that case I would remind him that this is a part of living with roommates. If your roommate is sexually active, you’re going to hear them fucking at some point. Buddy needs to grow up and get over his hangups.
Funny how reddit is. I just read a post where this guys GF was too comfortable having sex with his roommate, and now this.
F that noise. If his door was wide open, he gets no sympathy. Not wanting a noisy house is one thing, policing what people do in their rooms is another entirely. I had a roommate that would leave his door open like that all the time and it was obnoxious. No one wants to hear your phone calls or not be able to use the common space because you feel like you’re invading their privacy. That’s princess behavior.
It sounds like he’s purposely leaving his door open, which is weird.
Y’all live in shared housing. Both you and roommate need
1: to accommodate each other
and 2: to be compatible.
If you don’t like living with each other for whatever reason, the person with weaker ties to the apartment can move out.
Try giving Jake a warning. “Hey Jake, we are about to be a bit noisy. Put on some headphones and watch a movie or play some music so we don’t disturb you.”
If he doesn’t have headphones, buy him some cheap ones so he can’t make an excuse not to wear them.
This is 100% your roommate’s own fault for leaving his door wide open. It sounds like he’s deliberately making sure he can hear everything so that he can complain, and/or he’s getting some sort of voyeuristic kick out of listening in. Either way I completely get your girlfriend’s discomfort and the truth is even if you could knock some sense into your creepy roommate and get him to stop pulling this shit it’s likely she’d still be uncomfortable having sex at your place. Especially since the other roommates have also commented on it, now.
So you’ve got to look at this in terms of likely outcomes. You can confront your creepy roommate, which will likely not result in him cooperating because if he responded normally to situations we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. Secondly even if he did knock it off it’s likely Angela still would feel uncomfortable there. So from my POV there’s not much to be gained by having the fight, you’ll just end up in an even more tense living situation and no positive outcome.
My recommendation would be making preparations to move out. This accomplishes two things. Number one, if you’re currently all splitting the rent four ways then you leaving suddenly increases the financial burden on the other three guys. If you make it clear you’re leaving because they, particularly 22M, wouldn’t stop giving your girlfriend shit then the other two may turn on him and have your back about forcing him to behave. He’s likely to ignore any attempt from you to curb his behavior but if all three of you are pushing him it may get a result. It could also result in the other two not joining in with the gross comments anymore. None of that guarantees Angela will feel comfortable there again, but at least your living situation would be more tolerable.
The other thing preparing to move out accomplishes is that you are prepared to move out if need be, and that’s important. You’re reaching a point where your completely normal lifestyle needs (i.e. intimacy with your girlfriend) are being interfered with by your roommates. If you getting ready to move out isn’t the wakeup call they need then it would probably be wise to go ahead and move out. A place you get by yourself will be smaller, sure, but it will also be YOURS and I can’t tell you how much better that will feel.
For the record, the problem is the roommate, not your girlfriend. You need to talk to him.
Shut his door for him.
“Hey dude, bit of courtesy. I’m going into my room for an hour or so and well… I’m helping you out here”
>She also feels uncomfortable because he leaves his door wide open, so it almost feels like he’s purposely listening so he can complain
Would you rather a happy sex life with your girlfriend, or to appease your roommate who is almost *trying* to be offended by your bedroom activities? You can make your girlfriend feel more comfortable and less creeped out by understanding she doesn’t want your roommates to complain or YOU BE ON YOUR PHONE WAITING TO HEAR A COMPLAINT?
When I had roommates, we would just go put something on TV as loud as possible in the livingroom so people knew what was up. That, or we blasted music.
How is always being at her place causing a strain on your relationship with your roommates? This doesn’t make sense to me.
NGL, I’d be having extra loud sex at this point then walk out looking smug.
If your other roommates have SOs then point out to them this jabroni actively listens to you all having sex.
Edit: If you’re feeling petty then disrupt the next time he has sex at your house.
This isn’t a “convince her” sort of issue; any woman, most men, in the world would feel the same as she does. This is a “confront him” situation.
I don’t see an issue with him asking you to keep it down when you were quite loud. But the rest is on him to manage. If you’re being respectfully quiet, but his door is open and he’s not listening to anything to cover it up, then it’s on him. It’s part and parcel of living with multiple people.
Maybe you all can swap up the rooms. Or you can turn on music when in your room, regardless of the activities in there. But no matter how you all choose to resolve this, he needs to know that you’re not going to never have sex because he refuses to deal with living with other people. (Especially after the other comment, which yes, he’s obviously jealous. He either is jealous of you being in a relationship, or likes Angela.)
As a college kid, I’d have done exactly what your girlfriend is in this situation. As an adult, I wouldn’t fucking stand for it. My partner deals with his roommate situation, or he’s not my partner any longer. I wouldn’t put up with not being able to be comfortable in my partners home, because he has a creepy roommate who listens in on our sex life and acts jealous and confrontational about it, and my partner just…lets it happen.
He has some mental issues