All My Children

If you are in love and are perhaps talking of marriage, better not let yourself be persuaded to reveal previous love affairs or sexual experiences. Your beloved may say, and it sounds plausible, ‘We shouldn’t have any secrets from each other.’ But most people in love don’t want to tell and don’t want to hear about previous romances—they were mistakes in one way or another. The person who is eager to tell about his past romances is usually someone who gets unconscious pleasure from making his beloved jealous. And the person who wants to know about his beloved’s past has, in most cases, an over-jealous personality : it will only make him resentful and miserable to hear the story.

One possible exception, to my mind, would be the case of a girl who has had an illegitimate baby which the neighbours know about. She might feel (though another girl perhaps would not) that it is better to state this briefly at the time when a boy proposes marriage, rather than have him hear it later from someone else. The girl doesn’t have to use a tragic tone, as if this episode will turn her boy-friend away permanently, but in the tone of, ‘I should tell you, in case it will make a difference to you.’

It sounds cynical to imply that it is all right to deceive as long as you are sure you won’t be found out. I only make the distinction because I believe that some men would feel they had been cheated if not told what the neighbours know, whereas they wouldn’t feel cheated if not told about previous romances or affairs which no one knows about but the couple involved.

Similarly I think there are many girls who would feel they had been deceived if a boy proposing did not mention he had fathered an illegitimate child.

Adolescence Shyness is not a Bad Sign

If you are a shy teenager you particularly crave to be sophisticated and amusing. You want to be masterful if you are a boy or seductive if you are a girl. In your class or group in school there are probably individuals who seem much more worldly, witty, well-dressed and successful than you, and you envy them with secret bitterness.

But you should know that the advantage doesn’t always lie where it seems to. The individual who at an early age can make the crowd laugh often turns out to be a bore later on. The suave, good-looking boy who seems able to charm all the girls at fifteen may show by eighteen that he has no real personality and nothing to say. The girl who is the vivacious queen of the group in her early teens may just seem noisy a few years later. I don’t mean that everyone who starts at the top in appeal finishes at the bottom and vice versa, but there are plenty of drastic shifts.

A boy or girl may be shy in the early teens because, though he has a lot of individuality and character, he realises he has no skill yet in communicating these, in making them interesting to another person. (It’s much more difficult at first to express thoughts than it it is to make chitchat.) He may be especially awkward in talking with a particular individual of the opposite sex just because he feels strongly attracted.

It’s good to remember that if you are drawn to someone and if you are a sincere person, the message of your affection will usually get across, despite any awkwardness. This doesn’t guarantee that your love will evoke the other’s love, though.

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