Stories of suicide on a first date - better to stay optimistic

Here are three scenarios I've come across and I'd like to know your reactions: 1 The date is a university lecturer tells you he was living with a student. He stays out all night with other women. She threatens to commit suicide and one night does so. He is agitated and insists that she had no right to try to control him and she was always threatening him. His friends and even her family told him it was not his fault. And if you want a relationship with him you must be prepared to give him his freedom ... 2 The man on the phone says he nearly married a girl her met at a dinner party, who had problems with a childhood of abuse and he thought he could help her and did everything he could but she took herself off. She ran out one night and drank an entire bottle of whisky and got gang-raped and he visited her in hospital but clearly he could not solve her problems and though he loved her dearly ... 3 The date says his fiancee died after slitting her wrists. She had had a childhood of abuse and her two siblings were also abused by their stepfather and her brother had taken an overdose and her father had committed suicide in prison after she took out a restraining order and she felt guilty. The date said there's a lot more I could tell you, but that's probably enough on a first date. As a child he broke he accidentally broke his arm ... 4 Man four has a disability pension and suffers from depression ... Would you date one of these but not the others. If so, why? Would you date all of them? None of them? Why? Should they have told their stories differently? Or said less during a first conversation? Have you ever said something on a first date and felt the other person was not sufficiently sympathetic? Or that you had revealed too much? Do you think you are known by the company you keep? (meaning Him and his ex; and you and your date.) Do these stories show that the men are a) Kind people who help others b) Sensible in dealing with common problems c) Losers who attract losers d) Attention seekers e) Living in the past f) Don't know how to be cheerful on a first date g) Are good at telling stories to find out how kind and sympathetic the listener is h) Drama queens - if this is the first date it can only get worse - stay away.

Without going into any judgements on what was said, I feel that on a first date it would create a much happier impression if one were to stick to impersonal subjects on a first date or first phone call. Leave stories of the deaths of close friends and family and the times you accidentally injured yourself to the therapist. As a Washington DC taxi driver once said to me, 'Ma-am - I have problems of my own.'

I am not saying you should lie. I am saying that you should treat a date like a job interview or an interview with a bank manager. You should look bright and cheerful and not tell him about your greatest failures and worries. You want to leave him thinking you are a bright, cheerful, successful sort - if you want him to see you again and risk sharing his money and his future with you.