It’s 2:20 a.m. on a Friday night. You’ve just spent entirely too much time bonding with Captain Morgan and his friends Jim Beam and Jack Daniels and now all you want to do is fall into bed and wake up on Sunday. You manage to make it up the stairs without incurring serious cranial injury and, as luck would have it, your key is still in your pocket. Reaching for the door handle, you notice that instead of feeling cold metal your hands touch something soft instead. In fact, it feels like silk. Then it hits you; door handles aren’t silk…ties are silk! With a sinking feeling, you look down and realize your worst fears have just been confirmed. There, proudly displayed on the handle, is your roommate’s favorite tie (you know, the pink Vineyard Vines one with the golfers). Congratulations! You’ve been sexiled!! Now, as you stumble down the hallway towards your best friend’s room, knowing that at least there you can sleep on the floor, consider yourself lucky. At least you and your roommate had a game plan for situations such as these. Imagine the ensuing awkwardness if the tie hadn’t been there. One night on the floor is infinitely better than a lifetime of flashbacks involving your roommates bare backside and some girl whose name you may or may not know (at least from where I’m standing). If you and your roommate haven’t yet gotten your acts together and laid down some rules, consider the following. I’m about to detail the 10 Commandments of Sexiling:

1. Thou shalt have a detailed game plan. I mean come on people; this is as essential as knowing what to do in the event of a fire (and, statistically speaking, this is more likely to occur than a four alarm blaze). Remember, this isn’t just your room anymore; you have to be a big boy and share. If you want to bring someone back at night that’s fine, just make sure that your roomie knows the shirt on the door signifies something and that you didn’t just run out of places to hang clothes.

2. Thou shalt use your own bed. Did I really have to spell this one out? Your date, your bed, end of story. And no, the futon is not an option. I don’t care how much bigger it is.

3. Thou shalt be reasonable. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. You’re not in heat; humans don’t have a mating season. I have faith that you can wait three days for the weekend. There really isn’t any reason for the flag to be flying on the door on a Tuesday.

4. Thou shalt share. This goes back to number three. If you and your roomie both get back at the same time, both of you have “friends” but you’ve sent him down the hall the past three Saturday nights in a row, it ‘s definitely your turn on the floor. You can take her with you if you want.

5. Thou shalt have your roommate’s best interest at heart. If he comes home with a girl that looks like she was recently the piñata at an ugly stick party, you might have to escort her off the premises. Be creative. He will thank you in the morning.

6. Thou shalt have the girl’s best interests at heart. If your roommate brings a girl home that looks like she’s gone drink for drink with an Irish sailor, escort him off the premises. They will both thank you in the morning.

7. Thou haseth the right to a good night’s sleep. If you’re still sleeping off the “Jell-o” from the toga party on Friday, it’s not completely rude to ask your roommate to move the festivities to another room — like his date’s, perhaps. Just don’t plan on pulling this one off all that often.

8. Thou doesn’t haveth the right to make snide comments. Even Paris Hilton is capable of figuring out what’s going to happen when your roommate shows up plus one on a Friday night. You don’t need to yell “GET SOME!” as you walk out the door. There’s also no guarantee that the plus one won’t slap you later.

9. Thou doesn’t have the right to abuse the tie. Don’t sexile unless sex is involved. That makes it simply exile and unless you happen to be bunking with Napoleon, exile is completely unnecessary. Besides, it’s mean to take advantage of those who don’t have all their wits about them. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?

10. Thou haseth the right to borrow condoms. If your roommate is so selfish that he can’t bring himself to share, throw a quarter in the box and grab one. It’ll be a lot cheaper than day care. And besides, who keeps an accurate count of how many are in the box anyway?

Whether or not you take any of these cleverly disguised pieces of advice to heart is your call. Just make sure you have a signal that indicates the room is in use. You don’t want the image of your roommate and some girl whose name neither one of you know seared into your cerebellum for all eternity, do you? Plan ahead!