It really started to hit me after the third conversation that went something like this:

Me: Oh nothing much, just worked on another draft of that book.
Him: Right, the novel.
Me: No, the baby book.
Him: Wait, what baby book…?

It takes some time to catch someone up on the previous 24 years of your life. After the first series of dates – those interview sessions where things like, “it’s a small town in Central Jersey” and “yep, oldest of four girls” come out – you shift into this weird phase of knowing enough to stop treating every outing like a speed dating session, but still not enough to avoid moments like, “it was right after I quit Cheerleading. Oh. Wait. Right. I was a cheerleader. Forgot to mention that…”

It’s a delicate balance, the full-life reveal. You want to be open enough to highlight everything the package includes (college education, current profession, musical tastes, major aspirations), but not so open that one might opt out before really knowing you (participated in a college tradition involving a strip tease before a crowd of hundreds – twice). Which stories you tell, which friends you highlight, what opinions you share, and what mistakes you don’t. Way more complicated than that little ditty from The King and I, though she was dead on with the second verse. It’s that “getting to hope you like me” that’s at the crux of it. That’s the part that influences the way we stack our stories.

Me – I take the project my own self-consciousness to create his presumed opinion of me approach. I’m self-conscious about my writing so I share it sparingly — he’ll probably think my college fashion column is ridiculous. I wish I’d never been a cheerleader thus I pretend it never happened and downplay it if/when it finally comes up — “Yeah, but there were two other captains, so it wasn’t a big deal.” Sometimes it’s deliberate (have yet to mention Drinking Survivor) and sometimes it’s not (the Junior State of America just happened to come up when we were talking about his own political involvement), but what we say and when and how we say it is always in our control. Ours to over-analyze, and then blurt out on an occasion we didn’t plan in a manner we’d frankly dump ourselves over: “Aww, that is a cute dog. Have I told you I once had an ovarian cyst?”

There’s that list of things you have to mention, in fairness, before things get too serious: my parents are divorced, I’m hoping to move abroad within 6 months, I voted for Bush, I’m a virgin. Things that, if the person finds out too late, they’ll be offended. “You probably should have mentioned that” things. Then there are things that could/should probably wait: I likely won’t stop having kids until I get a daughter, I’m roughly 5K in debt, it’s not that I don’t believe in God, it’s just that I’m not 100% sold on it/him. Things you want to test that waters on a little before you launch in. “Okay, um, good to know…” things. The rest, fair game, undefined, grey zone, hell.

This makes me sound like I’m sometimes lying (and always a freak), which is not at all the case. There’s nothing I’d keep from someone I’m truly getting to know, but any story reads differently depending on how you order the chapters. And since there hasn’t been quite the right moment to suggest we each complete one of those Kairos-style life charts outlining all major points of our personal and spiritual development, the process is going to be gradual. Gradual, and maybe a little bit awkward.

You: How was your day? Did that crazy co-worker bring her boyfriend to the party?
Him: Yeah, and get this! He was straight off the boat from Puerto Rico.
You: Oh yeah, you don’t say? Hhmm, than this might be a good opportunity to tell you that I once dated a Puerto Rican. And by once I mean right before you.