My pidge partner never collects his post. I understand this shouldn’t feature significantly in my life. But Alan’s contempt for correspondence really grates. You see, however you approach it, Alan and I have an extremely intimate relationship. I cannot help but feel betrayed. The increasingly ostentatious stack of letters crammed into the narrow pigeonhole is toying with me. They are a constant reminder of the apathy of my non-existent penfriends. Each day a new envelope peeks an enticing corner out into the post-room. Each day the green shoots of my hope are sliced to pieces by the strimmer that is Alan’s enormous popularity. Dear Alan. Dearest darling Alan. Fuck Alan.

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Maybe I’m being unfair on the old chap. He could be bed-bound by illness. He might be engaged in a race to patent a multimillion pound discovery. Perhaps he is the fictional front for a network of university fee fraudsters. Whatever – it’s because of Alan that I have become an unintentional stalker. I know what you’re thinking. Horrendous excuse mate, you can’t accidentally stalk someone. Call the cops Jimmy, we’ve got ourselves a confession. But it’s true – without conscious effort I know which societies he’s part of, who he banks with, where he lives, the names of his family and friends, and which groceries he buys. That last one isn’t true. But it could have been if I’d opened the Tesco coupons. His unread Christmas cards haunt my dreams.

Alan got me thinking. This whole sharing thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, I think teaching a small child to share is morally wrong. You become the tremor behind the modern wave of unjustifiable chumminess. We must all learn to empathise, they say. Sharing is the first step towards kindness. Compromise is essential for a happy life. What they don’t tell you is how the amount of intimacy in your life will creep up and up to a perilous level. Then you realise you’ve been sharing a toothbrush for a week, you don’t know whose pants you’re wearing, and that your boundaries have gone the way of Jeremy Hunt’s credibility.

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It starts with the shared kitchen. It’s not the gradual merging of utensils and equipment. That’s almost endearing. No, it’s when you see dirty washing-up adorning the sink and receive an insight into the exact contents of your neighbours’ intestines. A rummage through the fridge becomes a series of 50 year health forecasts. Steak, cheese and chocolate mousse? Good luck mate.

Don’t even mention bathrooms. There are no secrets left when you’re breathing air which is 60% human. People have been accused of cannibalism for less. I encountered a sink the other day which was blocked by pasta, washing up liquid and clumps of hair. My life flashed before my eyes. What had I done to deserve this? It was as if I had plumbed the depths of the owner’s soul, and it had been found wanting. At the very core of their being was a slimy mound of fusilli.

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Noone really wants to feel like Sherlock twitching and blinking his way towards dark personal secrets. Sometimes you’ve got to grit your teeth and put up with a bit of unpleasant closeness to keep life running smoothly. But if you do decide to do intimacy, take my advice and avoid the bed. Sharing a sleeping venue is an unfathomable enigma of engineering. Formulating a mutually comfortable position requires feats of strength, flexibility and architectural ingenuity that would have won the admiration of the classical world. It’s in the name: single bed. It ain’t designed for two. Assorted limbs hang off various edges in unsightly ways. Apparently there are people who can reach orgasm purely from the feeling of damp laundry tenderly brushing against the soles of their feet.

I am not one of those people. Take my advice. Shun intimacy. Withdraw from society. Sharing is a one way street towards the abyss.

It’s Saturday. Well, not right now, I know. I’m trying to set the scene here. For the purpose of this exercise, it is Saturday. I wake up, I yawn, I stretch, and I jump out of bed. “Hurrah” I cry, nervously through the morning air, as I pad to the shower, “It’s Saturday!”. To my optimistic mind that could mean only one thing. Booze, banter and debauchery.

As night falls, people collect in my room. We sit in armchairs and on beds and drink our tea-stained mixer out of tea-stained mugs. My ‘Pardee’ Spotify playlist isn’t doing much for the whole booze, banter and debauchery plan. We need a little spice.

My friend trundles off to her room to get a pack of cards. (Spicy, I know). But alas, she returns not with spice, but with dice. Technically she returns with die. But I enjoyed that little thing I just did there where I rhymed spice and dice. Sorry.

“I’ve made up a game!”, DieFriend announces, “It’s a question game!”. Five minutes later, I am not so sure it is going how she wished. I roll a six, and thus I must start the question “Would you ever” I predictably begin. The next to roll a six is DitzMate, and thus she must finish the question, “…ooh, I know!!! Touch a piece of mouldy food! Would you ever touch a piece of mouldy food?”.

We cruelly chortle. “DitzMate, mate, I don’t think you get the game. The questions have to be interesting.”

DitzMate bows her head. “That is interesting!”

We all look at her silently. “Okay, okay, I’ll make it better next time”. Someone answers the question, die are rolled. Once more I roll a six. I’m very talented at this game. “Have you ever…?”, I begin. Once more too, DitzMate rolls the second six. We look encouragingly at her. She smiles, she’s got it. She’s been thinking about this.

“Okay”, she announces, smugly, “have you ever…had an image in your head of a moose and a goose side by side?”.

I reach for my bottle of gin.

Soon we are sharpening our shapes, ready to fling them around a sweaty hired room. We arrive, and they are flung. Along with, it seems, my body. I find myself soaring sideways through the air into the boy’s toilets, by a gentleman who I once conversed with on a show I used to present. It was not a seduction attempt; he does not follow. I find myself amongst urinals, chatting with a fresher, whilst massaging my shoved shoulder, unsure of quite why I am here.

Thankfully, the night continues without being pushed through any more doors. I tire. Soon, I pull DieMate away from flirting with our aged college barman, and we head home. As I mopily hiccough, we spot a huddle of friends. It seems that a m8 has dropped someone’s keys down a drain. A wooden spoon and plate appear somehow in the hubbub, ready to measure the depth of the drain. The keys, apparently, will be found at whatever cost. This is confirmed as two people stick their arms down a drain, squelching through unidentifiable drain juice.

I tire more, and finish the walk home. The next morning, I sigh not just at my aching head. I’m growing old and boring, I think. I am becoming reliant on the soft comfort of my incredibly hard mattress.

Later, I see KeyDropper sitting in the JCR, with sleepless eyes, and a bandage covering her leg. I look down at my excellently working legs, and then back at hers. Her eyes fall on me. I try not to grin.