Well, it’s Oct. 2, and things are beginning to get a little tense. This whole living-with-a-roommate thing seemed like a great idea for the first month or so, but now the rose-colored glasses are getting a little foggy.

You see, as much as those little info sheets freshmen fill out over the summer are supposed to find you the perfect roommate, they overlook one very important question: Do you plan on having sex in the room?

It’s easy to get caught up in the tame questions pertaining to your sleeping habits and music choices, but where are the questions dealing with the real issues?

I can guarantee you and your roommate are much more likely to get in a fight over that bare-assed co-ed hiding in the closet than whether to listen to Guns ‘n’ Roses or Prince. It’s easy to overlook unmade beds, piles of clothes on the floor and empty beer cans strewn about the room, but a member of the opposite sex wearing only their birthday suit straddling the gap between your desk and the wall? Not so easy to pretend you don’t see.

Many roommates will try to avoid the mid-semester walking-in-on-your-roommate-bent-over-like-Gumby-doll incident by developing a handy system for times when one of you is planning on getting a little freaky in the comfort of your room.

Some will place a seemingly nonchalant item such as a scrunchie or sock around the handle of the door to warn the roomie of potential porn activity within. Others will assume a much more candid attitude and simply scrawl “Gettin’ laid!” on the dry-erase board for all to see.

These choices work fairly well in walking-in-on prevention, but there is undoubtedly going to be at least one incident over the course of the year when your roommate is going to be too drunk or burned-out from studying to notice that handy tube-sock hanging from the handle. Therein lies the true problem of dormitory lovin’.

Many of these dorms have been around so long that the individual rooms no longer have working locks or doors that close all the way. This creates many a sticky situation, but none so messy as the late-night intrusion on some study-break nookie.

There you are, rocking each other’s worlds on your lofted twin bed, when in stumbles your roommate, three sheets to the wind, looking for the number for Gumby’s. No matter how close you and your roommate have grown over the past months, the sight of you and your partner wearing nothing but grins is not going to be a pretty sight.

The week following the “incident,” as you will come to refer to it, will be full of awkward silences in which you just know your roomie is picturing Saturday night’s horizontal tango session.

Many roommates will never recover from the deeply embedded scars this visual will create in their subconscious, and the memory of it will linger for years to come, costing thousands of dollars in counseling. So, for the sake of you and your roommate, stick to weekends the other is out of town, or consider renting a room at our local Ho-Jo.

Even worse than kinks in a well-developed prevention system is the high incidence of roommates who just don’t give a crap. These are the sub-par members of the human race who really don’t give a damn that you are three inches away pretending to sleep and will choose to get right to it with or without your consent.

I don’t know who actually thinks someone falls asleep two minutes after the lights go out, but let me tell you: It’s not true. Yes, your roommate may in fact be lying in his or her bed with no lights on and breathing shallowly, but that is no reason to assume he or she is out for the night and it is okay to jump each other’s bones.

People who think the sounds of a shoddy dorm bed straining to stay together are similar to a lullaby are sadly mistaken. This all-too-often display of sexual blatancy is not acceptable, and measures need to be taken to prevent this sort of display.

Why not jump out of bed and burst into a rousing version of “Nothing But Mammals” by the Bloodhound Gang to break up the steamy couple’s antics? Or you could “accidentally” fall out of bed and pretend you were having a nightmare to interrupt the nightmare of your current reality.

For the truly desperate, there’s always the fake-sleepwalking-out-of-the-room trick, a guaranteed embarrassment to the lovebirds as well as the individual. This is only recommended as a last resort when more subtle methods are failing and you have a 7:45 a.m. midterm in organic chemistry.

As this week’s sexual exploration draws to a close, I hope you will remember to be considerate when sharing a 3-by-5 cube. . . err. . . dorm room, with someone else. And always remember; no matter how warm it is outside, you always need a love-glove!