Obnoxious and Serious Invasion of Privacy.

There isn't much interesting happening right now... just obnoxious things. And with finals approaching, we are all losing patience more quickly and well, we are fed up. Ticked off. One fuse too short. Upset. Furious, even.

One of my roommates, Aubrey, has a boyfriend. His name is Ron. He's a good guy and is our age. He hasn't been on his mission yet, but that's because he has to work and save up for it. (Strangely enough -- he shares a major and a job with me -- yep. He's a custodian at the library and a neuroscience major, just like me.) However... all of Aubrey's roommates have gotten quite sick of him. Including me. He NEVER leaves. His omnipresence is a tad bit obnoxious. Visiting hours are from 9am to midnight as per the all-important Honor Code. He kind of respects this. Kind of. Actually, not really. Not at all.

He's a bit clingy. Oh wait. Replace "a bit" with "very." So clingy that Aubrey and Ron are practically never apart. And when they are -- that either means that Ron is at work, Ron is at home and asleep and Aubrey is at home asleep, or Aubrey is in the bathroom (in which case Ron is likely to be found outside the bathroom door talking to her as she does her business...). So her space is invaded, of course, and she doesn't seem to mind that much.

The real problem here is that Aubrey has five roommates who also live in her apartment, and their privacy has also been invaded to the point of extreme annoyance. Haylee has the worst of it, because she sleeps in the same room as Aubrey.

If it's between 9am and midnight, he is pretty much guaranteed to be at our place. Unless Aubrey has a class; then he goes with her to that class, and then they both are gone. (Usually he just ditches his own classes.) The part I really hate -- it'll be five minutes past midnight, and he'll be lying on our couch.

"Ron. It's past midnight. OUT!" I'll say.

"I'm sorry," he'll say. And then not move. He usually isn't out until half past midnight. It bugs the heck out of me. That is most definitely against the Honor Code.

If he's not here by 9am each morning, he's here before then, eating breakfast with Aubrey.

"Ron! Get out! You're not allowed in yet!" Shannon would complain.

"I'm sorry," he says, and doesn't move. Again, against the Honor Code, most definitely.

And -- he just goes into Aubrey's room. Aubrey's roommate, Haylee, hates it -- I mean, he just stands by the door, but nonetheless, he is in the room. Boyfriendless Haylee can never escape from him, whereas the rest of us have our bedrooms that Ron never bothers to come into (because Aubrey isn't in them).

"RON! OUT OF THE BEDROOM!" I scream angrily.

"I'm sorry," he says, and ignores me.

He practically lives in our apartment, and all of us except for Aubrey HATE it.

Over Thanksgiving break, Rachel and I were expecting to be the only ones still here. We... were wrong. Ron and Aubrey were here. Aubrey -- that's fine, she lives here. Ron, okay during visiting hours. But he never left. He lost his keys, and his roommates all left for Thanksgiving. Instead of asking his landlord to be let in, or asking a male neighbor if he could spend the night... guess what Ron does? ... He would have slept in our apartment if Rachel and I hadn't been so upset at him. No, no, he slept outside our front door.

The way our apartment is set up is as follows: kitchen and living room downstairs, and bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. Guys aren't allowed in our bedrooms or bathrooms, and we like it that way. However, although there isn't anything wrong with men in the hallway up there according to Honor Code... the five of us who aren't Ron's girlfriend like to take these things called showers sometimes. And we'd like to be able to take these showers, and then open the bathroom door without fear that Ron will be standing there in the hallway to witness us wearing nothing but a towel or robe. (Most of us prefer to dress in our rooms -- usually the steam will fill up the bathroom, making it impossible to dry off properly, especially when you've got long hair that drip-drip-drips incessantly.)

Our solution?

Red tape!

When Ron and Aubrey were gone somewhere, the five of us shouted glories and hallelujahs (not kidding) and began to clean our little apartment hurriedly. It is impossible to clean when Ron and Aubs are here -- they are usually sprawled on the couch or messily cooking something together. Fine with us, except that they never clean up the messes they make. The five of us soon realized that everyone else was feeling the same thing -- "It bothers you too? Really, I'm not the only one? Oh gosh, I was afraid I was the only impatient one!" We had a Ron-bashing party in his rare absence. We soon discovered that we all deplored Ron's presence upstairs. And we decided that if that was bothering us all so much, that we should make it off limits.

Halfway up the stairs we drew a red line with tape, and wrote on it: "CHASTITY LINE: NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT! THANK YOU!!! (We do take showers sometimes...)"

Except here's the problem... I'm not sure what made us think that a guy who doesn't take the Honor Code seriously would take our red tape line seriously.

Ron and Aubrey came home. Aubrey went upstairs. Ron followed.

"RON!" belted Rachel.

"What?"

"CAN YOU READ?!?!"

"What? Yeah, why?"

"I SAID, CAN YOU READ?!?! LOOK AT THAT RED LINE!"

He looked at it. "Oh. So?"

"Stay downstairs, Ron."

"Why?" he asked, puzzled.

"We don't like it when you're up here. We take showers sometimes, you know."

Ron looked over at our bathroom. "But no one's in the shower right now."

"SO?" the rest of us yelled. "WE DON'T WANT YOU UPSTAIRS!"

... And from then on he proceeded to ignore us. From his point of view, if Aubrey doesn't mind if he's up there, it's okay.

We don't know what to do. I would appreciate any advice in how to proceed... Because otherwise... Next step is for all of us to sit him down and confront him about it. And if he still doesn't comply? Honor Code Office. Which could lead to as serious a consequence as expulsion from the university. (I feel bad for saying this, but that would honestly delight me...) Harsh, perhaps. But he should have considered that before he angered five women.