Dear Dr. Date,

I know dorm romances can generally be a bad idea, but I really think that my new boyfriend and I are the exception. We met when he knocked on my door asking me to turn down my music, I told him he was cute, we exchanged numbers, and the rest is history. My friends have questioned me dating someone who lives next door to me in a dorm, but I don’t see any problems with it: he’s perfect!

Well…mostly. See, we were coming back from a party on Friday pretty drunk, and he was pretty high energy. He was jumping up and down, trying to see if he could reach the ceiling, when the unthinkable happened —  he smacked an Exit sign. It was like a slow-motion scene from a movie. He gasped, saw it was intact, smiled … then smashed it as hard as he could anyway. Then, he ran down the entire hallway, broke every single one, and darted into his dorm room before I could say a word! 

Dr. Date, I cannot believe I am dating someone who breaks exit signs. Besides the general assholeishness it takes to do that, they’re really expensive and can make a dorm unsafe! I tried to bring it up with him, and he said he “loved the feeling.” Am I doomed to pretend I don’t know him when he starts smashing things, or can we overcome this together?

Sincerely,

Territorial Hell

Dear Territorial Hell,

Well, for one thing, “we” don’t need to overcome this. He needs to stop breaking exit signs. Seriously, why do people do that?!

Look, I’m not necessarily going to judge you on your “floorcest” relationship, but I do think you need to address this right away or risk having an ex live one door over. Someone who doesn’t care about destruction of property (or what will happen if he gets caught) is not someone you want to be with. Hopefully you caught him early in his sign-smashing career and can stop it, but if he doesn’t see a problem, that’s a red flag. Exit that relationship while you still can — yeah, living next to each other will be weird, but it’s not as bad as having to admit you’re still dating a guy who does that.

Sincerely,

Dr. Date