The Myth of Full Disclosure - Your Ex-Boyfriend Will Hate This (2015)

Your Ex-Boyfriend Will Hate This (2015)

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Myth of Full Disclosure

I’m just going to come out and say it right now: the “whole truth” is wholly overrated.

As the famed wit Oscar Wilde wrote:

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

We lie to each other, even to the people we love most, and sometimes especially to the ones we love most. Take, for example, our discussion about past sexual partners. In a survey of two thousand ladies by Glamour magazine, they were asked, “How many women has your boyfriend slept with?” Here are the results:

✵ None - he was a virgin - 16.7 percent

✵ One - 8.8 percent

✵ Two - 5.8 percent

✵ Three to five - 14.8 percent

✵ Five to ten - 14.5 percent

✵ More than 20 - 11.4 percent

✵ No idea, I don’t want to know - 28.1 percent

There are a couple of notable things about these results. First, men clearly underreport their number to their girlfriends. By most conservative estimates, the average number of sexual partners for men is above ten, whereas the survey results suggest the opposite. The other notable result from the survey is the last entry, which, by my estimate, is about 71 percent too low. So I’ll ask the question to you again in a more direct fashion, dear reader:

Do you honestly want to know how many women your boyfriend has penetrated?

We talked earlier about why I think you should never share your number. Short of STDs or undisclosed children, your sexual past is irrelevant and no one else’s business. Nothing good comes from this discussion, ever. A prime example is the story of my friend, Rebecca. Her last boyfriend initiated the discussion of sexual history early in their courtship. Against her better judgment, Rebecca revealed her number, and it turned out to be higher than his. Fortunately, the guy took the news reasonably and reacted in a mature fashion, responding with a good-natured perspective.

Just kidding. He flipped out.

Want to know why you should never tell your number? Because when you’re honest, you get responses like this:

“The guy is supposed to be the one with a bigger number,” said Rebecca’s boyfriend, exhibiting a vice grip on rationality and fair play. “That’s just how it is.”

Whenever someone’s only argument for something is “that’s just how it is,” you can be sure that’s just how it isn’t. Among my friends, this is by no means the only example of this ridiculously specious argument. Plenty of men, even normally rational ones, honestly support this idiotic double-standard. Whether it threatens his male ego or contaminates his perversely warped idea of female “purity,” this kind of retrograde dope needs to feel more experienced.

If you don’t want to avoid his type altogether (which is my heartfelt recommendation), don’t answer the question in the first place. If he insists on an answer, lie right to his big, stupid face. Tell him you’re not only a virgin, but that your priest says you’re so pure that you won’t truly lose your virginity until the third mating.

In the case of my friend Rebecca, she wasn’t accused of being a slut only on that first night. The discussion flared up over and over during their four-year relationship whenever a fight became particularly bitter and she was clearly winning the argument. Men often accuse women of not staying on point or playing fair during a fight, but men employ the same dirty tactics when cornered. Given that Rebecca was far and away her boyfriend’s intellectual superior, his response in a fight usually devolved into:

“Yeah, maybe I don’t [get a job/clean up after myself/ever take you anywhere nice/tell you I love you/etc.]! But you’re a goddamned whore!”

Rebecca got this form of thanks repeatedly, just for being honest. And it probably wasn’t the only time when a denial or skillful half-truth would’ve served her better. The idea that full disclosure is warranted is patently ridiculous, especially early in relationships. I don’t know if it’s the influence of daytime talk shows or therapy or self-help books far more misguided than this one, but we’ve been sold the idea that the unvarnished truth is necessary, early and often. Live by this credo if you wish, but don’t be surprised when your relationships end, early and often.

There has been a mountain of research on the subject of online dating. People who meet online are presented an opportunity to create an image of themselves that face-to-face interaction doesn’t offer. In person, we present a series of non-verbal cues (facial expression, body language, etc.) that can counteract the message we’re attempting to convey. In short, our bodies give us away, making it possible for the absorbed message to differ greatly from the intended message. Online interaction takes place in a vacuum capable of allowing us to shape how we’re perceived. Studies have repeatedly shown that the more successful we are at presenting our best selves, the more successful the ensuing relationships tend to be.

This doesn’t mean you should out and out lie about who you are. If who you are is wildly divergent from the image you present, your relationship is doomed. There no point in trying to get your partner to fall in love with a false representation of you. It will take all of your energy to frantically preserve false pretenses and struggle to maintain a love that, for all intents and purposes, does not exist.

Though there is no use in perpetuating an unsustainable lie, there is real value in presenting your best self during the early stages of courtship. The idea that online dating is the last bastion of the perpetually lovelorn is absolutely rebuked by fact. A study by Bath University in Great Britain reported that 62 percent of respondents thought it was easier to locate someone compatible online than through conventional methods.[lxiii] 94 percent of these matches resulted in at least a second date. Moreover, one in five people who used online dating services married someone they met online.

Putting to bed one of women’s chief complaints about men since our species first began walking upright, men reported that they found it much easier to open up online than in person. So, not only is it potentially easier to find a proper match online, the relative anonymity of online communication makes the “getting to know you” phase of the relationship much more seamless.

Like everything in life, however, this new openness should be viewed with a cool head. The rush to reveal everything about ourselves doesn’t pay nearly the dividends that our tele-therapists would have us believe. In a study by Nancy Collins and Lynn Carol Miller entitled “Self Disclosure and Liking,” the researchers noted that, while self-disclosure is often seen as positive, there are a myriad of opportunities for things to go wrong.[lxiv] The process of getting to know someone is just that—a process. It occurs incrementally and marks the negotiation of a complex relationship. It isn’t enough for each party to hear what’s being said. Far more important is understanding, and understanding doesn’t occur immediately.

This highlights the essential problem in immediately launching into a laundry list of your past actions, your former misdeeds, your dashed hopes, your fears both real and imaginary, the dark corners of your upbringing, and the sum total of your neuroses, past and present. It’s too much, too soon, for any real understanding of the complex person at the center of your list. You would honestly be better off reading New Guy an actual laundry list, which would yield about the same amount of insight and has the added benefit of not scaring the shit out of him.

I’m not saying that who you are isn’t wonderful. Unlike The Rules, I’m not suggesting that you maintain a veil of mystery for fear of someone discovering the real you. I’m saying quite the opposite—that you’re a richly sophisticated human being with many layers who can’t be easily explained by a night worth of revelations. It took your entire life to form the person you are today, and you can’t explain all that in a matter of hours, no matter how articulate and self-aware you are.

Don’t try.

Self-disclosure isn’t about spilling out the deepest, darkest recesses of your soul at the first opportunity. It’s about getting to know someone and having him earn your trust. You don’t talk about how you lost your virginity to a business client over lunch. Why would you tell some new guy over dinner on a first date? Or a second or third date, for that matter? Make any new person in your life prove his worth before allowing him into your confidence. As Collins and Miller note, self-disclosure is a skill, one that involves knowing what information about ourselves to give and when to give it.

One of the problems with presenting too much, too soon, has nothing to do with the potential for scaring someone off. Assume that you’ve deluged a new guy immediately with your entire back story, warts and all, and he sticks around. Where do you go from there? Collins and Miller note that couples who rush through an initial stage of “frantic self-disclosure” often find the opposite is true later on. Having unburdened themselves to such an extreme degree early in the relationship, couples have less of an impulse to do likewise as it progresses. This is fine if neither you nor your partner ever changes or leads a separate life, it is less so if you’re stuck down here on planet Earth with the rest of us.

Relationships thrive on momentum. Stasis kills. After the shine of lust fades, what remains is conversation. Lots and lots of conversation. Don’t minimize the joy of discovery. It’s what allows relationships to blossom over time. Besides, as much as you believe you know yourself, there’s a lot you may not know. That’s one of the wonderful things the right person can do—help you to see things about yourself that you’ve never realized before. Spinning a giant origin story for your partner may elucidate certain facts and your own personal theories as to what makes you tick, but it may obscure his own observation. As the earlier survey on body image bears out, we’re our own worst critics. Thus, it’s likely that any appraisal of our own faults is likely to be far worse than those faults appear to other people.

So when you feel the impulse to tell New Guy all the things that are wrong with you, fight it. You’re painting a picture he may never see otherwise. Accept that you look more beautiful than you realize. If you can’t accept it, at least learn not to make a fuss.

Let New Guy earn his way into your heart and mind gradually. If he can’t be patient while getting to know you, it’s unlikely he’ll be patient during the natural growing pains every relationship experiences over time. Like sex, love doesn’t profit from hurrying. Slow down and savor it.

In the last chapter, an entertaining summation of our entire discussion will be provided, and a victory lap will be taken by your author and those of you who are patient enough to see the finish line.