How do you handle being asked deep personal things too soon?

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In other topic people discussing the "Are You a Virgin question" coming up often when they meet new women. I find myself wondering, is it just me or is that not something that should be up for open discussion just after meeting them for the first time?

How do you handle the situation if a potential dating interest asks you something that you feel is a little too personal to discuss in first meeting or perhaps first date? Can it make you reconsider your interest?

Say you are talking to them at the bar or coffee shop or anywhere else, you just met them and found them interesting also they seem to find you interesting as well.


-How much money do you make in a year?
-How much money do you have in the bank right now? If none or a little, do you have any debt?
-Where do you work and how much do you earn per hour?
-What's your career endgame and how much can you expect to earn once you get there?
-Do you own any assets including car, house, etc.?
-Questions about valuables you have("Oh you have a computer/jewelry how much is it worth?")
-Do you have a credit card(s) and what limit(s)?
-Where do you live?
-Your religion?
-How many sexual partners have you had and what was each experience like?
-Are you a virgin/When did you lose your virginity?
-Wanting to discuss traumatic events from your past that you aren't comfortable talking about or maybe just not yet.
-Questions about mental health/medical conditions, basically health concerns that we typically don't discuss openly to any stranger?
-I think you have X personality disorder\syndrome\etc can you tell me about that?
-Breast size or ***** length

I don't know if it's a Me Issue or not but I think it might push me towards losing interest in a girl if say we'd been talking for 10 minutes for the first time and these questions start coming up, depending on if they are pushy about it or willing to let it go if I don't want to answer it. I am very sure it would be 100% unacceptable if a man asks a woman these questions, but is this something that is okay if it's the reverse scenario where a girl asks a guy these questions?

Is it normal if I would feel quite uncomfortable being asked these questions, and I feel it would be the same case regardless of what my answers would be depending on the stage in my life. Especially if it's so early that we'd be considered to pretty much be in the stranger/acquaintance stage. All of these questions pertain to sensitive personal things always with the chance of the asker not liking the answer and normal social boundaries/social etiquette don't permit us to ask these questions. It would make me really wonder if they're going to respect my boundaries, if they might be controlling if they have to know everything about me.

I would feel uncomfortable too. I think it's inappropriate for people to interrogate and screen you so intrusively - it shows that they are not as interested in getting to know the dynamics as they are in getting to know what you look like on paper (so they can see how it matches up to their checklist). I would lose interest too

If it's a particularly relevant question, I would be a bit more understanding of their reasons for asking. As in, the kind that would naturally follow something you've just said - e.g. if you talk about your income/lifestyle and they follow that up with a probing question. In that case, I might answer truthfully if I felt comfortable - and then I might return the question. I'm not going to judge them for being curious

But if it's an oddly placed question, I would probably make a joke about how it's inappropriate, ("Is this something your dates normally ask you within the first 10 mins?" - with a smile). If they keep probing, it'd be a deal breaker. I would tell them I'm not interested in talking about those things

i just blow their heads off.

That would be fine, that is what I consider to be within reason. But I still wouldn't want to give hard numbers as that's my business.

However this would not be fine:
Me: "Hi how are you?"
Girl: "I'm doing super great, it's really cool to meet you. By the way, can you answer me a few questions please including: What is your salary? How many sexual partners have you had, this is a non-zero number right? Can you tell me about your level of knowledge about sex and describe some sexual experiences you had? Can you tell me why you are the person I should spend today with?"

I would say what my job is but not much more at first. Largely because of the Aspergers blind spots I keep in mind the possibility of getting tricked or scammed, at least until it reaches the point where the situation becomes a poor return on investment for a scammer. There would of course be a limit to how much time and energy they would be willing to put in and I at least don't want to make their job too easy. My caution regarding this won't actually come into play unless the woman is really interested to know my personal financial details or profiling me in some way, like the kind of stuff I'd hope to beyond the scope of what a real love interest would care about. A man asking these same questions would likely be considered dangerous or at the least a total creep. I hope a real love interest sees me as a human being more so than a walking piggy bank or a sex doll.

My attitude is I want to have healthy boundaries set, if my boundaries are not being respected now that means I can't expect anything different in the future. It should logically follow that since it would be a poor show of class for a man to ask very personal questions about a woman's sexual experiences that it should be considered reasonable for me to dislike the opposite scenario of a woman asking me very personal questions about my sexual experiences.


My thoughts exactly. I made this thread as I was thinking about it and really feeling it's something I wouldn't want to tolerate. So I wondered how it was for others. I never thought about this much or about whether it's something most all women will do or only a few. Basically if it's going to be something I have to deal with all the time and would I strike out 100% of the time if I will call people out for being really intrusive? If I ever got married I know I wouldn't want to deal with nonstop super intrusive questions for no apparent reason. Maybe that's a Me issue but TBH I got anxiety already so I think if they have a paranoid disorder(possible explanation if there aren't any kind of ulterior motives) that's gonna be a bad mix. All I know is that in a marriage I don't want to deal with abuse, control or other toxic conditions.

I would try some humour("So are you a government agent or something? Sex-Education teacher?") to try to clue them in. If it doesn't work maybe I'd try a joke that's a little more direct like a Jack Bauer/24 joke. If they still insist then I think I'd excuse myself and then ask them to please refrain from following me home.

Does this actually happen though? I think I would find this hilarious.

That one guy's comments in the other thread seemed to point to this. He said when talking to girls he always get asked about relationship experience and if he has ever had sex. Seems crazy to me cause if at the bar a guy asks a girl this stuff I'm pretty sure he'd get thrown out. Or are double standards a thing?

If I had a fast internet I'd make my phone make the beep sounds from 24. Or maybe 1984 Thought Police jokes. I think all I could do is make it into a joke if that's what they ask me in the first 5 minutes of ever meeting me.

Like if we had a relationship and I come home from work are they gonna ask me how many girls I looked at whilst at my place of regularly scheduled employment today? I'm gonna go into programming or something so not many, are she gonna call me a bald faced liar when I say 0.

I think it's uncomfortable. Clearly some people are looking for certain values and lifestyles, but there's gotta be a nicer way to screen for it than straight-up asking some of those questions on something like a first date. The only ones I think are really reasonable are religion or the city you're in. I don't consider those as personal as traumatic events or one's sex life since they impact dating and socialization a lot.

City is fine but address is not, while still at the stage of barely knowing them.

Religion is fine unless it's clear they got really strong views where it's just gonna be an argument. But I guess better to find out now than later.

For me it's if I get a sense that they really judge people with diferent beliefs. I'm areligious but am pretty cool about it unless they really force their beliefs like saying I'm a damn sinner cause I feel differently.

It's mostly the shaming parts in religion that I take issue with. Making me feel shame like I am a defective human being doesn't solve anything basically anything that makes people feel less than human. Like Toxic Shame doesn't do anything positive for anyone it's just self hatred and rejecting yourself.

IMO, I didn't mind answering questions about what my job was, did I have a car/house or what neighbourhood I lived in. However, if it got too personal I would politely say that I wasn't comfortable discussing these questions at an early stage. Luckily it never got to that point although in my experiences every single women asked out work almost immediately and pretty much expected you to have a higher paying job than them.

I think he was referring only to internet dating.

I would ask what job someone did, but would be fine with whatever the answer was inc no job, but I might have concerns over something like 'I work for tobacco company' type thing. I would definitely ask what career or lifestyle they were heading towards in case it clashed with mine because I wouldn't be happy in some lifestyles. I'm very low key, I don't want to live big. Also because I would want to know what someones dreams are because mine are important to me so they would probably be important to them too. I would only ask about housing if it was relevant to the conversation.

I have never asked anything about income or potential income or sexual experience, or been asked any of those questions on a date.

Do they want hard numbers like what is your hourly rate or salary? Like some Kevin O'Leary type questions where it's like I am pitching an idea to investors or venture capitalists? Is it seen by women that dating a man is like investing in a company? Do they have to KNOW that I earn more money or else I am automatically a waste of time?

How would it work if I have career where it varies a whole lot as I'm thinking of going into programming. Salary range is huge, they can get really big pay if they have an important role at a major tech company or if they create and sell software that goes big.

On the other side of the scale there's more modest jobs like I think low end is 30k-40k. And apps/software that just get by, they might give you a few hundred a year. If I am a struggling app developer who works for myself to sell apps, my take home might be closer to the entry level jobs like retail. It doesn't mean they are a bad developer as it's going to be a struggle until they produce something that gains some popularity. You could be a multi-millionaire like Todd Howard or even a billionaire like Notch. Or you could be selling apps on the app store and getting anywhere from couple hundred a month to thousands a month. No way to actually know unless they ask for salary info or software sales(are those things that always get asked about? Do girls say outright "I want to gain financially through association with you or else it isn't worth my time"?)

There's no guessing here unless I flat out state my earnings statistics which I don't feel is something that should be up for open discussion.

If something is too personal, just say it's too personal.

I'm starting to think that the fact they couldn't nail down an exact salary (my job title is rather vague) had something to do with it. I did mention that I am gunning for a promotion so maybe they read between the lines that I was underemployed? Either way who cares!


No but with extremely few exception I have never known ANY woman to be outright about anything. I am sure my wife was a bit disappointed that I didn't have the savings she did but I pointed out that I am better off financially than 90% of men in my age bracket.

I get what you mean. I would be understanding if someone felt that their religion was central to their life and wanted someone who shared that, though. I guess I probably wouldn't get on with someone super-religious, myself, since I don't follow any religion and couldn't participate beyond politely showing up for church once in a while if we did wind up together.

I've seen people be judgmental about religion, politics, even regular interests like music or video game taste, though, so I try not to hold it against certain types of beliefs.

I personally would make it be known, to someone I have interest in dating whether online or physically, what my spiritual beliefs (soulbonds, kintypes, multiverse etc) are before we even start a relationship. A relationship is not going to go far with me unless the person I'm with knows of my soulbonds and is ok with my polygamy relationships with them (and just in general). It would be stupid and even potentially dangerous for me, personally, to not come out of the "closet" about that sort of thing to someone I plan on inviting into my life. Because I simply cannot and will not hides things like that as they are a focal point in my entire life. They do not have to believe in it, but they sure better not shame me for it if they are planning to date me.

I didn't want to state anything in this post... because I didn't feel comfortable stating that people need to answer personal questions like that, it's what people decide on what they want to say and not say. I personally am uncomfortable coming out to people in that sense of the "bizarre" lifestyle I have. But I have to when it comes to dating. In most scenarios, it's best to come out and tell people those things. I hear too many stories of people breaking up and getting divorced because one person finds out someone's sexuality or belief and leave them. It's better to get rejected now than later. Yes, people can still turn their backs on you and make fun of you while you're in the midst of dating and that's when you leave them.

Last edited by MariaTheFictionkin on 07 Feb 2018, 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was literally asked "How much is your salary?" by girls on first dates - few times.