His Point of View

This morning I was reading this blog post over at http://www.global14.com/ and it made me think… “what if your mate/date told you of their past as a hard partier?”  I mean beyond the number of sexual partners they have had, but what if they partied 2 or3 days a week for years, what if during those parting times they used cocaine, LSD, mushrooms, Extasy, etc… ?  I don’t mean that they were an addict and they pawned their mother’s microwave… but they claim to have been a “social” or “casual” drug user.  I will not count marijuana as a party drug in this case, unless you have never tried it (even once).  Most people have dabbled with weed, but if you have not and you are against its use then you can throw it into the mix with the other party drugs.

How would you know that they are completely drug free now?  Would you care?  Would you be suspicious of  (or expecting) a relapse?  Would you be concerned with what type of sexual activities they may have taken part in (or could have been a victim of) during those care free times?

I had a conversation with a female friend of mine a while back and we discussed her college years of partying and the things she had done, and strangely I was not turned off by it.  Perhaps it is because I see that she is doing well now, she has a stable career, and she is doing things that no one else that I know has attempted to do.  Perhaps if she had told me about her past before I had a chance to know her my response would have been different, or perhaps if I did not truly believe her when she said that she had never been addicted to anything, and she left all those things in the past.  But the fact is that we were never involved intimately and we have never dated, so I did not have to really consider those issues as factors within our relationship as friends.

What is your limit of acceptable past behavior?  When is it too much for you to wrap your brain around and continue forward?  Does it matter at what point during dating they bring up this topic? I think it would. I think that many people would be less accepting of this news if they have not yet fallen for the person they are dating.  At the same time, you run the risk of hurting and deceiving the person you are dating if you wait too long to discuss this subject.

What would do? /  What have you done?