I am currently working at a hostel in exchange for accommodations. I live in the staff room, which is a small room with four sets of bunk beds in it. Because of the living situation, the staff all became close and comfortable with each other relatively fast.

But within these four walls and eight beds there are nights with some awkward flirting, kissing and everything in between.

You know those first few days/weeks when you are getting to know a guy and it’s all fun and mysterious? And you both have things that you don’t want to disclose about yourself right away? Maybe because these things are private, or embarrassing or just something that should wait for the third or fifth hookup? Like, for example:

• You’re not going to inform a guy that you just met that you’re on your period
• You’re also not going to do your makeup in front of him
• He’s not going to see your undies drawer right away
• He’s certainly not going to watch you carry a tampon into the bathroom
• Or hear you snore the first night
• Or walk in on you changing
• And probably not overhear you talking about period cramps to other girls
• Definitely won’t see you leave the room to “pee” and come back in twenty minutes later knowing you weren’t just peeing
• He’s not going to see your nightly and morning routine right away
• Or see you with your morning hair and/or face
• Or even see you still drooling on your pillow because he wakes up before you
• He’s definitely not going to see you walk around in just a towel the first day you meet

Well all of that goes out of the window when you’re living in the same room as the guy you’re hooking up with. In hostel living, there’s no such thing as privacy. Within the first three days of knowing this guy, he had experienced all these things and more.

So, what do you normally do when you’re finished with your hookup session? You go home. Well, home is the bed one bunk down and two feet away from him. So I hop off his bunk and slide into mine. Fine. But now, we can still both see each other. So as I’m texting friends and giggling at my phone about my latest hookup gossip, I look up and remember that he’s literally right above me.

You are also stuck in the same room for better or for worse… Say you’re just not feeling him tonight and you want to go home alone, SURPRISE. You live in the same room. Say one of y’all wants to hookup with another person, haha that’ll be awkward.

Oh, just another day in the life of awkward Norah. Ps. He’s sitting right next to me as I write this. Should I show it to him?

xx