Bwog’s preferred method of hiding booze

Dear Bwog,

What do you do if your roommate doesn’t want you to keep drugs/alcohol in your room but you don’t have anywhere else to put them and your system of morality allows for illegal substances but not lying to a perfectly decent person? asking for a friend.

Dear Asking for a Friend,

Random roommates can be your greatest foes. If you don’t get along, the entire year can end up extra tense, and you might never feel like you have a real home away from home. (They’ll also be less likely to obey a sexile order.) So it’s probably for the better that you want to keep your roommates sense of morality/smell in mind whenever you want to bring drugs into your communal living space. But your approach for dealing with your roommate should differ based on their objection to bringing recreation into the room.

If they’re worried about the RA – Resident Advisers want to make sure that you’re not making the stupid decisions that will land you at St. Luke’s at 3 in the morning. But RA’s vary a lot in how stupid they’ll let you be. You probably got a good feeling at your floor meeting as to whether or not they’ll bust you if you’re not being a huge nuisance. Don’t let the smell of marijuana get into the halls (especially if you’re at Barnard), keep your friends under control, and don’t throw two dozen cans of Crazy Stallion into the floor trash can at once. And remember – RA’s have to respect your privacy by knocking and can’t assert their authority by coming in anyway (unless your door is open). So hide the drugs in your underwear drawer behind the vibrator – they’ll never be comfortable enough with you to look there.

If they’re morally opposed to drugs – Your roommate is unfortunately allowed to be opposed to drugs, and the housing office won’t be very amenable to the “I want to change rooms because my roommate doesn’t support my drug habits” request. However, your roommate should understand that your bad decisions are your own to make. So long as you’re not spilling drugs all over the floor, and you don’t use them while your roommate is in the room, you and your friends’ enjoyment will have absolutely no effect on them. Your drugs are your property – you might not be comfortable with your roommate’s unfortunately large collection of suggestive manga they keep in their bottom drawer, but you don’t really have the moral right to tell them to get rid of something that never has any impact on your life. And if they’re really trying to convince you to hold the same moral opposition as them, feel free to listen, tell all your friends, and have a good laugh about it with your friends over some beers.

If they’re scared of drugs – We’re afraid of that which is unfamiliar. So get your roommate acquainted with your drugs! Spike their organic fair trade vegetable juice, or bake them a brownie out of the goodness of your heart that you swear totally doesn’t have weed or anything. They didn’t consent to that stuff being in their body and they will be in no way prepared for the effects, but they’ll thank you later when they realize that, now that they’ve done drugs, they’re officially cool. Or you could gradually talk them out of whatever DARE propaganda they’ve been taught and try to convince them that drugs in proper moderation aren’t going to turn them blind and convert you to Satanism.

If your roommate really will not tolerate drugs in your room – You could just stop doing drugs, but we both know that’s not going to happen. Since you really shouldn’t be doing drugs alone, consider having one of your friends who you drink/smoke/snort with hold onto your valuables. You could try to figure out some hiding space on your floor, inside the lounge couch or in the ceiling boards. And you could try hiding them away in your room and only taking them out when your roommate isn’t around, but that will probably get found out pretty quickly, and then you’ll have an angry person to deal with for the rest of your year.

We hope that you can use some of this advice! Remember – drugs are temporary, but roommates are also temporary.

xoxo,

Bwog

Totally legit work practices via Shutterstock