When a Roommate has a Boyfriend and a Double Becomes a Triple

When my first-semester roommate invited her boyfriend into our dorm room one night many years ago, I didn’t know it at the time but I was in the process of being “sexiled.”

Instead of leaving our room night after night when my roommate’s boyfriend inched his way onto her bed, I suffered in silence with my pillow plopped over my head, trying to pretend that was how I actually preferred to sleep. This awkward ritual added to the general malaise I felt my first semester at college, and though I...