Keeping it cheeky: The Rootes of the problem

It could be the blossoming of a serious relationship, a naughty affair away from your other half at home, or just a bit of drunken fun. Whichever it is, a lot of students will at some point have to face the challenge of keeping their new found romantic endeavours hidden from their flatmates and friends. So here are the top five tips for keeping it secret, but cheeky.

No noise!

It sounds obvious, but nothing’s a bigger giveaway than deafening bedsprings keeping your neighbour awake all night. They are likely to get suspicious. Get inventive with locations, or use the tried and tested mattress on the floor trick, and keep any passionate exhalations to a minimum.

Don’t be caught in transit.

This may have to mean keeping these escapades nocturnal – no suspicious trips off to each other’s rooms at 4pm to ‘watch Countdown’.

They know your movements!

Don’t appear bleary eyed in the morning from the wrong end of the corridor or worse, from the wrong room. A girl I lived with in first year scaled a drainpipe in the middle of the night merely to avoid the chance of being spotted. This is the kind of ingenuity and creativity that is expected.

No PDAs.

Okay I know it can be tempting, especially if you’ve found something really sickeningly special. But if you want to keep it secret, then any physical affection beyond a standoffish pat on the arm is pushing it.

In fact, it’s best just not to touch each other at all. And if you start making out in Smack with the urgency of lovers separated by oceans, your friends may twig that something’s going on. They may be ignorant, but they are not blind.

For God’s sake dispose of any evidence.

Underwear, jewellery, or miscellaneous pieces of clothing carelessly left strewn across the floor is really just plain stupid. I once witnessed a corridor-wide campaign to discover the owners of a mysterious used condom. This embarrassment is to be avoided at all costs.

Keep shtum.

Finally, the best piece of advice that I can possibly give you is to not tell anyone. And I mean no one. Well maybe someone living in the far reaches of the Mongolian mountains, cut off from civilisation and the internet.

However if you tell anyone in the Warwickshire area, especially in your house/flat/corridor, even in confidence, it is guaranteed to get out somehow.

Since it’s unlikely you’ll follow all the above, you are essentially screwed (pun intended).

Good luck keeping it a secret, I bet you won’t.