I’m In a “Whatever” With a Guy I Really Like
How to Get a Boyfriend in College
Hoping For Those Three Little Words
Does My Boyfriend Love My Sister?
Learning to Swim in the Deep End
Is Casual Sex Destroying Empathy?
Learning to Speak Hookup: Guys’ Edition
Defense Against the Dark Arts: Narcissism

dragnet says:
August 12, 2010 at 5:56 pm
“I remember the story you told about hooking up with a woman who had been really rude about another guy, and enjoying blowing her off after that.”

Yes, that could definitely be classified as a ‘grudge-fuck’ now that I think about it. I find it weird you remember that waaaaaay back detail of my sex life, but I guess that’s what I get for posting on the Internets :-)

“Everyone knows (especially sex researchers) that women exaggerate their numbers downwards and men upwards. It then becomes a question of degree, and we’re back to the same question. What number is reasonable? Can you fudge it by two partners? 32? It’s very difficult to know where to draw the line.”

Yeah—which is why you shouldn’t fudge it. It’s selfish and counterproductive. The best response is really just to say you don’t want to tell them and that it’s not important, or that you made some mistakes and you’ve done a turnaround and that you feel like this relationship is it for you blah blah blah. But fudging really shouldn’t be among the list options if you feel like the other person is LTR material—they’re entitled to a truthful answer if you want to be with them: either the real number or the fact that you aren’t interested in discussing it.

kooralive

“Honestly, I don’t even understand the fixation on a specific number. This was never a question 20 years ago. I have never been asked this question, even by my husband. Nor do I know or wonder about his number. It seems to me that that conversation is almost never useful.”

Once again, this strikes me as extremely self-serving, and I’m sure you’re aware of this. The usefulness of the information about promiscuity is really for the other person to decide—it’s wrong to make that decision for them. If you don’t want to answer, then don’t.

And it’s easy not to care or wonder about your hubby’s number after you’ve been successfully married and blissfully happy for decades. When you’re about to take the plunge though, this really is indispensable information for a lot of guys, and I really don’t blame them. The “number” has become more important as women have become increasingly willing to available themselves of all the escape hatches and opportunities for infidelity that abound in our society. These days a guy needs to know exactly what he is getting. The good news is that a savvy guy (a guy with Game) can eventually suss out what kind of girl she is without asking the “number”. The bad news is that most guys don’t have Game.