#2. I think I share too much. I’m too transparent. I want to know how much to reveal and when. It’s my experience that men like mystery or aloofness.
Not all of us!
I tend not to judge people on their past “sins” , especially when they fall under the same category with my own. But, especially if it’s a relationship that has a lasting potential, knowing all the skeleton’s in the potential “other’s closet ( & which you soon might start sharing) is a must. Even if one doesn’t believe that honesty is the best policy in some situations , there is a very clear practical advantage to it:
We are who we are, and we can not escape it. Just like we can not escape our past, no matter how hard we try, it has a way of showing it’s head in the most inappropriate time. So, if there is something in there ( or anywhere else) , that might be tough to handle the sooner it is out there , the better.
I don’t know about the rest of the planet, but , as much as I am concerned, some of the basic Murphy’s laws drive reality around me do, if there is any shi… anywhere, no matter how well its is hidden, sooner or later it will pop up and get it’s stink everywhere.
On a (very lightly) different angle , you can look at it like this: We need ( well, I personally do) to be able to fully believe the person I am with. And, If there is something about the person, or their past, that is for some reason too difficult to handle, knowing it sooner is much better than later, not only that it saves a lot of time, sometimes years and years, but also pain. For whatever hurts a lot now, it will hurt exponentially more as time passes . For w whatever is “too much” today, will feel the same after 1, 10, 50 years.
A long, long time ago, in a universe in which I was young, after a lot of mental effort I managed to gather the courage to ask out a girl who just came to Prishtina to study from a town about 45 kilometers southeast of here. I met her about 6 months prior, when I was in her hometown due to an event a magazine I was working for at a time was organizing. During the few minutes we chatted our short conversation she told me she was starting law school in Prishtina in October, and I often found myself hoping I’ll run into her somehow. After a while it did happen, yet , despite ( or maybe because) of my crush, it took me a while before I asked her out.
We felt good together and, by the end of the first date, as we were about to kiss she pulled a step back and told me that she slept with 23 guys ( which was at a time, in a virginity-obsessed Kosovo considered quite a number, especially for a 19-year old woman) and that if I had any problem at all with it, or if I am going to have a problem with it for some reason in the future, I better speak up and we call it quits there…
We were together for a while after that ( and broke up due to circumstances beyond our control….) . We still see each other occasionally and we’re pretty good friends who have nothing but respect for each other.
( OK- It seems that I went through the trouble of replying because I wanted to tell this story, for a while, but there is a point to it)
The same principle works for me to. My wife knew of all the ugly things in my past, as well as the “not-so-nice” and unappealing parts of me long before we got married. And the same worked for the couple of , really serious relationships I had before.
The “being mysterious” can often feel like she’s trying to hide something from me- and opening up, for me, is a sign of absolute trust which can only be reciprocated.