Being unemployed, I mean SELF-employed, I found myself spending a lot of time on twitter today and ran across this oh-so-true article on Glamour: 5 Things You Don't Want to Know About Your Boyfriend's History. I am probably the absolute nosiest person alive. Even more so than my mother, which is saying something. It's human nature to want to know everything about your ex. You feel closer, your bond is tighter and secrets can lead to so many unnecessary problems (case in point, the photo to your left).
While this article makes some extremely valid points, I found myself wondering even after reading it if I'd still want to know the answers to some of these questions and I was reminded of one of my ex's.
I found out early on that a guy I had been dating had been married and was recently divorced. That's obviously a pretty big thing you should know and you should want to know before diving into a relationship in your late twenties. Par for the course being the insidiously nosey person that I am, I took the information a little too far.
Ok, a lot too far.
My curiosity was killing me. I had never dated someone that was divorced. And it wasn't the divorced part that bothered me, it was the married part.
That same day he told me, I still didn't believe him given our initial sarcastic banter when we met. Something in my cyber-stalker and immature ways told me to Google him and I stumbled onto their wedding page on The Knot. Aside from being greeted with the "Congratulations! Newlyweds for 186 days!" message and day-ticker, a cute photo taken just moments after the engagement (which just so happened to be a cropped version of my guy's MySpace picture at the time, which did NOT sit well because he looked so damn happy in said picture which used to be one of my favorite pictures of him...), I also got to read about their engagement story. Talk about one for the storybooks.
I couldn't get this image of their fairy-tale engagement story. Being in another country and surprising her and having secretly flown in both their families to meet them on the other side of the mountain top with champagne (yes sir, you read all that right). Knowing that at one time he had met the girl of his dreams, which was quoted in the About section of their page on The Knot. I also read quotes from his family and comments from their friends congratulating them and talking about how they were the "perfect" couple and destined to be together. Talk about information overload. It even gave me information on where and what they registered for. The next time I went to his house I refused to drink coffee out of his Crate and Barrel coffee maker because I knew it was the one they registered for together. He must have gotten it in the divorce.
There are some things that are important to know in relationships. Things they've done wrong, things that make them who they are, lessons they've learned, etc. But heed my warning - do not, I repeat DO NOT ask a question you don't want to the answer to. And do not, I repeat DO NOT ask a question you can't handle the answer to. Those are 2 very different yet equally important warnings I just bestowed upon you.
Thanks to the Glamour article for reeling me back in with this line at the end...
Remember, curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back. The moral: never give into curiosity, just look for satisfaction.
(Note, I do not in any capacity feel equipped to offer relationship advice nor make any attempts to, but rest assured if you do the complete opposite of everything I've done in my past relationships, you'll surely find yourself in a healthy, meaningful, long-lasting one.)
.jl.
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