Does He Know Too Much About You? And Should He?

Spilling the beans on exes, dealbreakers, and what she had for lunch is Clara How’s way of telling a guy she cares – doesn’t matter if it’s early days. Not so for Davelle Lee, who insists there’s such a thing as TMI (too much information), and is all for keeping things under wraps. Each makes her case. You be the judge.

- Davelle Lee

YOUR RELATIONSHIP HISTORY

TELL HIM EVERYTHING

Clara How: “To me, there’s no such thing as too much information – I figure that if we’re going to consider each other as romantic prospects, we should at least get a sense of our dating patterns, and an understanding of why our previous relationships didn’t work out. It’s up to him whether he needs the details, but I’m willing to give him at least a Spark Notes synopsis. I don’t have a fixed rule for when’s the best time to spill, but I’m cool with talking about my exes by the second date. I assume that by then, we’d have communicated pretty regularly over text, and established a certain level of comfort with each other. As for his sexual history, I don’t need to know all the details, but I may ask him about his relationship history. If he’s hesitant about sharing, that’s a red flag.

I know what they say about details from someone’s past colouring your early impression, but I think it’s up to me to decide how to take that information. If he’s upfront about having cheated on his last girlfriend, I would give him credit for being honest, and be more likely to believe him if he concedes he made a mistake. If, however, much later into a relationship, I find out that he deliberately concealed this important fact from me, it would make me wonder what else he could be hiding. I’d rather we heard all the gory details straight from each other’s mouths than snoop through our social media platforms trying to find out more, and perhaps getting the wrong impression.