MIDDLETOWN – Last Thursday night, Chuck Lerner ’20 was on his way back from Olin after some late night studying. Unlike some of his peers, able to venture out into the unknown that night, Lerner had an 8:50 a.m. class that required him to be up early. He walked back to Bennet, scanned his keycard, and walked up toward his room. A few feet away from his door, Lerner felt his phone buzz.
“I didn’t even need to look at the message to know what it was going to say,” Lerner told The Argus. “It took me a long time to take out my phone and face reality.” The text, delivered at 1:30 a.m., read, “Sup. Gonna need the room. Thanks.”
Lerner was sent into a state of panic.
“I called everyone I could think of, but no one would open their doors to me,” he recalled. With nowhere to go, Lerner slept on Foss that night, with only vagrant stoners to keep him company. Fortunately, he still had books in his backpack, the pages of which he ripped out and fashioned into a makeshift blanket. Unfortunately, the books were rentals.
Lerner’s night was long and cold. We were able to obtain some of his correspondence to a friend, Henry Suerte ’20, in a single who fell asleep before Lerner could reach him.
“Dearest Henry, I shan’t dare to dream of my cool room and my moderately comfortable bed,” Lerner wrote in his text message. “I lay my head there so many nights, and now I fear that I will not see it again. The night grows darker, and my time here on this hill feels close to a fortnight. I pray for sunrise to come posthaste. Tell my story if I do not make it back.”
Lerner made it to his class the next morning. Classmates reported that he stumbled through the doors of Exley, disoriented and wearing tattered and dirty clothing. Later that day, Lerner ran into his roommate, who seemed unfazed by the prior evening’s events. Lerner’s roommate refused to comment for this article and hopes to remain anonymous, but his entire floor is pretty aware of what happened.
Stories like Lerner’s are far too common. Less cool, more studious, unlucky, or simply non-sex-minded students are too often displaced by their roommates’ active sex lives. After his harrowing experience, Lerner petitioned the school for a solution.
“I’m not trying to stop people from having sex,” Lerner claimed. “I just want to give people a place where everyone feels as annoyed with their roommates as I did. That’s why I asked Michael Roth to let the sexiled roommates of Wesleyan take over the ground floor of Usdan at night.”
The University and Lerner hope to establish this program as quickly as possible, but in the meantime, all students planning to engage in nocturnal sexual activity are encouraged to leave sleeping bags outside of their doors for their roommates. RAs will also be putting paper bags filled with hand warmers next to the condoms in bathrooms.
The gathering space in Usdan will be filled with many amenities for the distraught sexiled students. There will be headphones to listen to sad music, ice cream, a private place to eat said ice cream, study areas, and bunk beds for late night commiseration. As per the University’s stipulation, the entry fee will be fifty points.
To all those in his situation, Lerner has a message: “Don’t decide to go into your room despite being told not to. You will regret it.”