Roommates’ antics leave her bedless

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I live in an apartment with three other girls, all of whom are in romantic relationships. Due to this, each of them feels the need for constant “alone time” with her significant other.

My roommate and her beau take up our bedroom, another couple takes up the other bedroom, and the last couple takes up the living room. The living room boy sleeps beside his girl all night, every night, on the couch, and my roommate’s boy stays until the early morning hours.

This leaves nowhere in the apartment for me to work, relax or sleep. I’ve spent a few months sleeping on the floor downstairs most nights because my roommate’s boy wouldn’t leave, and even the couch was taken.

Last year, two of my best friends started dating, and they spent most of their time in the living room with the rest of us. They had their alone time, but it wasn’t constant.

I’ve asked the couch boy if he would go home at night, but he simply becomes angry with me. My roommate keeps promising that she’ll send her boy home at a decent hour, but the promises are, clearly, unbinding.

To worsen things, any complaint of these circumstances is passed over as my “bitterness” toward relationships (my own dear friend is pursuing the church, otherwise he and I would be in a serious romantic relationship).

I have no bitterness; I just want to go to bed, or read a book without being in the way.

GENTLE READER: You are paying rent, correct? And yet you aren’t being permitted to sleep on a reasonable surface – or read?

This seems to Miss Manners to violate the terms of any living contract, not to mention friendship. (Don’t these boys have homes of their own?)

Keep it businesslike, as you would for sharing rent and utilities. Propose a schedule and stick to it. If they balk at the resulting lack of spontaneity, propose that you then spontaneously pay less, as you are getting less than your fair share of the apartment. And start saving up that money to move out.