Before college, I always thought of myself as a neat person, but it turns out that my mom’s a neat person. Since getting here and being forced to clean up after myself (or not), I’ve discovered that I might be the filthiest person I know. It’s taken almost four years to come to terms with this, and the transition has been difficult at times. Where I once expected a fresh towel after showers, I now settle for rolling around in a pile of old T-shirts and grass.

If you’re like me, you may not have even noticed you have a problem. Here is a quick quiz you can do: Has it been more than two days since your last shower? Do you have a five-hour rule for food on the ground? Are you thinking about wearing this column in lieu of underwear tomorrow?

If you said yes to any of these, then you are nasty.

But now that you know how nasty and disgusting you are, it’s time to start doing something about it. No, I don’t mean being clean and picking up after yourself; that would be difficult. Instead, I am going to tell you how to live with the mess.

The first piece of advice I have is to seduce and begin dating a neat person. The advantages to this are practically endless. You can spend all your time at their place and pretend that you’re clean. When they do come over to your place, they’ll compulsively clean while you watch reruns of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Best of all, you can use make-out sessions as a thinly veiled guise for wiping your filthy hands on their back.

If your stench has become so repelling as to render the idea of attracting a mate a pipe dream, there are still other changes that can make your life easier. The most basic one is your clothes. Certain looks are better geared toward the unwashed, like jeans. As you may or may not have noticed, no matter how long you wear jeans, they will never be intolerably dirty. In fact, they only look cooler. Why pay good money to look like a hoboed, itinerant worker if you don’t have to?

Sandals are the next part of the equation. This underutilized invention could eliminate your need for socks. Socks: those ludicrous pieces of clothing that insist on being washed every time they’re worn, that need to be matched up with their partners after the wash, that have to match your pants for some reason that nobody’s explained and I don’t feel like looking up. Gone!

It’s here that I am forced to stop for a moment and set a limit. There is one more piece of clothing that, if worn, can render laundry itself a thing of the past: the tie-dye shirt. No matter what you spill on it, the tie-dye shirt never looks ruined. But I don’t suggest you wear one, because, coupled with jeans and sandals, this would make you nothing more than a dirty thieving hippie. Even to me, being perceived as a hippie is unacceptable.

To avoid doing dishes, your best option is to only eat things that are completely edible. If you’re getting ice cream, use a cone, not a cup. Eat the apple’s core. Serve pasta on a waffle instead of a plate. With dishes out of the way, you can use your sink for more important tasks, like brewing your own scotch and raising hermit crabs.

Grooming is next. Despite what your fifth-grade health teacher may have told you, there are many shortcuts you can take in personal hygiene — you’re only limited by your imagination. For instance, I defy anyone to tell the difference between a person who brushed their teeth thoroughly and someone who just scarfed down a tin of Altoids.

Lastly, and most importantly, I have just one word: denial. Deny your filth to the bitter end. Keep on thinking you just need a spurt of body spray instead of a shower. Call that pile of garbage in your living room conceptual art. If someone vomits when you enter a room, pretend it was out of respect. Remember, it doesn’t matter if other people notice ... as long as you don’t notice them noticing.