My college roommate and I would wake up simultaneously as our alarms blared into our dreams. From the right side of the room, came a croaking, “fuuUCK”; from the left, a whining “Shi-it”. We liked to say that I started every day off with a fuck, and she started it with a shit.

Over the summer, I found myself homeless and living off the charity of friends for a period of time. Eventually a good guy friend and I settled down into the kitchen of a pot-engulfed renegade artist colony. We had been friends for a long time, so I didn’t have any qualms about it. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if he was heterosexual. For the two weeks before school started, he and I spent almost every moment of every day together: working, cooking, and hanging out. I did his laundry, and he gave me rides. We timed our schedules so that we could work out together. I started to feel like I cared for him, much more than in a friend or roommate way, like I wanted to take care of him, and him to take care of me. But we were just friends, so nothing more ever crossed my mind…

“I’m so cold!” Every morning (when I could manage to wake up in the morning, that is), the even-in-the-summertime chill crept underneath my comforters and led me to cry out. From his bed (well, really just a futon cushion spread on the floor), my roommate always faithfully offered me a blanket. When I woke up on the last day that we were to share that kitchen together, I whined, eyes closed, “I’m so cold!”. Unsatisfied with his usual blanket offer, I replied, “No, I need a fucking heat generator!”

I suddenly felt my comforter lift and a body fall onto the bed beside me. He wrapped his arms around me and said, “I’ll warm you up”.

And that is how I started dating my friend and roommate. A pleasant surprise, like an unassuming box of chocolates.