Calvin,

So OK, now is the weekend and I have some time and I will tell you why you should only report ESTIMATES, be it dating your sexual debut or the number of partners if >5.

So there is a forum focused on Women, and there is a long long long thread there in which women report the age of menarche. Menarche=first menstrual period.

Most women report whole years - 12, 11, 13.

I reported - 2 weeks shy of 16. And I remember that it happened around Nov 7th.

Why do I differ from 95+% of women respondents on that thread?

Because I was so late, I was worried and preoccupied. All the girls in my class had already started, and I did not. I worried about it EVERY DAY. I thought that I would never start, that something was terribly terribly wrong with me. I was so relieved when I did start, and that is why I remember almost to the exact date. The degree of precision of my memory is driven by the degree of my worry and preoccupation with the subject matter.

Once I started menstruating, I stopped worrying about anything in this field, and I was never ever worried that I would somehow remain a spinster. I lost my virginity a year or two later than you did - fairly late - for a variety of reasons probably including CSA, probably including living with a very strict grandfather (it so happened that I started sexual experimentation only after he died), but not for lack of volunteers wishing to take it. Because I was not worried, I do not remember exactly when it happened. I believe, in the fall.

I also do not keep a spreadsheet counting sexual partners. I know that I have had fewer than you have had, that is for sure, but I think it is OK because I personally have not heard of any agency that would issue you brownie points or anything of value for the count of sexual partners - the more partners, the more points. Until such agency makes an appearance, I would not strive to maximize the number. I will just relax and take it easy.

Also, at work, I have so many spreadsheets that I have to maintain and reconcile - both in Excel and in Google Drive - that the idea of opening yet another spreadsheet makes me nauseous. No, not me.

So I will live with a rough estimate of how many partners I have had, and even that only if someone presses me to come up with it. For personal consumption, I simply do not care. I do remember about 2 ex husbands (2 is a small # so it is easy to remember) and I think that is enough, in terms of the utilization of my RAM.

In other words, people who are preoccupied with something and/or worried about something remember precise figures. Other people do not. So if you do not want to convey to your future women friends that you have been ever so worried and/or preoccupied with the subject matter, use rough estimates only.