One thing I really appreciate about my significant other, Thomas, is that he’s a fairly easy-going kind of guy. On Thursday I sprung it upon him that an old friend of mine, currently holed up in that Sodom and Gomorrah that is London was coming to visit over the weekend – and that I had offered him a place to stay. Thomas readily agreed and that was the end of it. Or so I thought.

While I was making the dinner, his mind must have been working overtime because as soon as we sat down to eat he had a question for me – what exactly had been my relationship with this Edward?
God, men! Sometimes they can be so predicable. Why is it that men are all so concerned about your sexual history? Mention a name and sooner or later they want to know if you’ve ever done the deed with the aforementioned. In fairness, I know most women are just as bad. But, hey, that’s no excuse!
Luckily though, Thomas was merely curious. I could hardly blame him for asking, since my exes have a habit of arriving unexpectedly in Dublin. I like to keep diplomatic relations open with the men I have slept with, and consequently I am on good terms with most of my former lovers.
However, if I’d known that half of them were going to decamp en-masse to Europe, I might have reconsidered the friendly approach. In the past few years my home has been turned into something of an ex-lover backpacker hostel. Whenever a phone call comes out of the blue, chances are the said ex in question has decided they’d “love to see me.” Unfortunately this generally means that they have not been pining for my fatal charms, but want to come to Dublin and use my fatally spare room.
Curiosity, I don’t mind. I suffer from it myself. What bothers me are those folks who decide, on principle it seems, to work themselves into a jealous rage at the mere thought of former lovers. Retroactive jealousy? What’s the point?
If you suspect your loved one is playing away, and your relationship is supposedly monogamous, fair enough, seethe with jealousy all you like. But these days, you’d be hard pressed to find any adult without a skeleton or 20 in the closet. My attitude to it is: so what?
We all have a sexual past. Unless you settled down young or lived in a hermetically sealed box, you can clock up quite a sexual history indeed, without really even trying. As I well know – sure, I never had to try! I’ve been sexually active for almost 14 years – I was an early starter! – so the notches on the bedpost have stacked up. It’s only natural that your current amore might want to know about your past.
I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s generally better to ’fess up if there is anything to report. But there is a caveat – while honesty is important, so is tact and you’ll have to decide yourself whether a full and frank disclosure of exactly what, when and who may result in your current main squeeze feeling a little like just one in a cast of thousands.
When one of my first proper boyfriends asked about my sexual past, I must have been having an attack of the oul’ Catholic guilt because I gave him an abridged version of the truth. I knew he was fairly inexperienced, so I thought it might be wiser to give him the pocket edition of my sexual history. This turned out to be a shrewd move, as he seemed to develop a severe allergy to all my exes.
Oh dear, I still shudder with the memory of it! He wanted details, particulars, and minutiae, with a side order of yet more even finer points. Then, to make himself feel better, he decided that all my former lovers had ‘taken advantage’ of me and were practically date rapists. This was problematic. Firstly it wasn’t the truth and secondly, he actually confronted one poor guy and threatened him.
An ex, known only as Voldemort or He Who Must Not Be Named as he is evil personified, once refused to have sex with me for a week – a week! – when he found out that I shared more than pints and trips to the cinema with my friend Gareth. It’s not that I’d been keeping it a secret – everybody knew and I’m pretty sure I’d told old Voldy at some point, but he remained inconsolable and demanded I never see Gareth again.
Now there are plenty of things that I am eager to do, and others that I am at least willing to do, to keep my lover happy – trying out new positions, fulfilling their sexual fantasies, watching porn, wearing too-tight corsets, not complaining when the footie is on, listen to them bitch about their colleagues and even get the odd Hollywood wax – but I don’t respond to ultimatums. Since I couldn’t keep both of them in my life, I decided upon Gareth and the single life. It was a smart choice.
Jealousy of past lovers seems to me to be a terrible waste of anyone’s time. Chances are, unless your partner talks about an ex all the time, he or she isn’t likely to be holding a candle for them. I hate to sound brutal, but it’s often a case of ‘been there, done that’ – so most of the time there really isn’t anything to worry about.
More to the point, a friendly ex is like a merit badge on your sexual CV. It means that, although the sexual relationship didn’t turn into a lifetime commitment and 2.4 children – a lucky escape really – you managed to end it with enough good grace and maturity to remain friends.
Luckily though, Thomas isn’t the type to worry about the past. It’s a good thing too, because he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. He’s certainly got more than enough ex-girlfriends himself. One evening, he offered to introduce me to a whole slew of his exes. Back in college, he worked his way through a group of girls who were all friends and who, oddly enough, are still on speaking terms with each other as well as with him.
At the bar, I asked him if it felt strange hanging out with a bunch of girls and knowing that he’d had sex with every single one of us. “Oh no,” he replied with an evil glint in his eye and looking rather chuffed with himself. “It’s like the AGM of my own personal harem.” Cheeky bastard!