Do I tell my crush about hooking up with mutual friend?
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Q. This woman and I are trending toward dating. Things are going really well and I really couldn’t be happier. We had previously tried to date a couple of times and it didn’t work out, but this time around things are just great.
The only thing is, we are in the same friend group, and I had a one-night stand with one of the other women in the friend group before I started talking to the woman I am talking to now.
The woman I had a one-night stand with definitely won’t be telling anyone about it anytime soon, and it was just a meaningless little fling when we were both drunk.
My question is: Do I tell the person I’m trying to date before we start dating? I am slightly worried that the beans might be spilled by someone other than me.
BEANS TO SPILL A. Was this one-night stand a month ago? A year ago? Five years ago?
If it was recent, it’s hard to tell whether this woman will share the information. You sound confident, but consider the timing.
Regardless, it’s your secret to keep. We’re allowed to have private lives! We’re supposed to have histories, even if they involve no sex at all.
For all you know, the woman you’re trying to date has hooked up with someone else in the group and doesn’t think it’s any of your business.
This story might come out eventually, and if it does, tell her the truth: that it was a one-night experience, that you and this friend snapped back to your old relationship quickly (I assume), and that you considered disclosing but didn’t — because you didn’t want it to seem more important than it is.
If the one-night stand had been some monumental event, it would have happened again. You can reiterate to the person you’re almost dating that you’ve been waiting to be with her. That’s what matters.
Others might disagree (and they’ll have good points, I’m sure), but I vote that we’re allowed to keep these kinds of things to ourselves, unless there are excellent reasons to share.
MEREDITH
READERS RESPOND:
First, don’t ever say “trending toward dating” again. Second, we all have pasts/private lives. You put waay too much importance on Friend Group dynamics. My advice is to let it be, and if this relationship becomes more significant, reveal it only in a casual way, in context. You’re applying way too much drama where there shouldn’t be any.
PENSEUSE
Choosing to have sex, even if it’s a drunken fling, is such a personal decision. It really bothers me that this guy is even considering outing the other woman’s personal sexual information in wanting to reveal that he had sex with her. Be a grown adult and let it go.
BKLYNMOM
After reading BKLYNMOM’s response, I think it depends on the relationship between the two women. I’ve had this come up twice in my life. First time was in college, and it was something that seemed like this situation — except I didn’t trust the hookup to not be a brat and feel like she had something over me or this woman. Told my soon-to-be-girlfriend about it, which proved to be the right decision when the hookup made an attempt at causing drama a couple weeks later, and my girlfriend cut her off with: “I know. He told me.” Second was a decade later, when I went out to dinner with a woman I knew was good friends with someone who was more than a fling but had kept it on the low. We seemed to have relationship potential, so it didn’t feel right to keep her in the dark. When the conversation moved in the vicinity of this experience, I told her. And it was a dealbreaker — so it was good that it came out before we started anything. If I had to do it over I’d play it the same way.
E_LOCKSMITH