How much of your past should you share?
I’m often asked that question and my answer is always the same.. it depends. If you’ve just met someone, you do not owe them your entire life history before you know anything at all about them. It’s a date, not a confessional. What if you tell someone all about your personal life in addition to the skeletons in your closet and you decide you don’t want date number two? You’ve got all this personal information floating around to whomever this person talks to about it. They’ve got no unwritten contract to be discreet because you’ve let them know you’re not going to see them again. Bad move.
What sorts of things are we talking about? Children. You don’t know this person and do you want them knowing your childrens’ names, ages and where they go to school? I wouldn’t. Where you work? Same thing. Where you live? Same thing. Also, there is no need for them to know you were picked up for drunk driving 5 years ago and they don’t need to know that you had 3 miscarriages. None of this is the business of a stranger and yes, this person is a stranger until you get to know them better.
Why let someone judge you for something that has gone on in your past that has no bearing on the person you are now? Makes no sense to me to put myself in that position of playing cleanup to prove I’m not that person any more. People who tell all right up front are probably the same people who open a book to the last page so they know how it’s all going to end. Stop that.
Unless you plan to drop your drawers and have sex on the first date, they also don’t need to know about any of your past sexual partners. This one really drives me up the wall. People tell me that they go on a date with someone and much of it is spent talking about someone’s past sex life. Too much information. When I go out I want the conversation kept to him and me and nothing more. How else are we going to know if we want to see each other again? Frankly, I’m much more interested in his present and his future plans that might include me than I am in who he dated from high school forward.
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You really are so very right, we (I) do share too much but it’s easy to get carried away, get caught up in post or the comment or both.
I totally agree. My most recent date was with this guy that talked all night about himself and the last relationship he had. He even told me that his last relationship was the best he ever had and he didn’t think he’d ever find that again. Wow, I would have had my work cut out for me! We dated for a little bit until I decided that I couldn’t compete with his ‘last relationship’, considering I found out she was 17 years younger than him!
Sound advice there, SOB (OMG, I hadn’t realised what ur acronym spelt)! So many women slip into ‘confessional mode’, which is neither necessary nor desirable.
Everyone is on their best behaviour when they first meet someone new, and after that person has performed their Jekyll and Hyde routine, it’s too late to retract all that ‘oh so private’ info you revealed to him. There’s always the chance that down the line a ways, the life event about which he praised your bravery and resolve, will be the thing that has him punching you in the face for being a filthy whore… so I hear! ;-(
I think if anyone talks too much about their past they have issues that need resolving. To me, its a red flag. Fair enough a long way down the track finding out a few things (UNLESS there are some real issues which ould be dealbreakers and are better off said upfront that is).
Hi, this is not a comment about a particular post. But I would just like to say how much I enjoy reading your posts. As a slightly over 60 with a zest for life I find it most refreshing! If you’ve got it flaunt it.
I have been counseling couples for over 25 years and the topic of how much to share from our past is touchy. It varies from couple to couple and person to person. Usually, the deciding factors involve the need to “come clean” or the need to prevent a “you lied to me” moment.”
Blessings
I think I do not need to tell many thing about me or about my family and also about my children when I meet with someone I never know before. Instead of I or them can start a conversation about condition of our place where we having a conversation.