Would you go out with someone who had something resembling a past life?
I live in Britain now, and I could almost say that this is my second wind, my second go at life. I have a pretty heavy duty past; I used to be a(n admittedly middle-class) heroin addict and almost entirely wasted the years of my life between age 17 and 23.
I've done crazy **** like carrying drugs over an international border (a small amount for personal use, over a Schengen border, but admittedly insane in hindsight), I've had very close mates die in a car wreck, I've made friends with some very colourful characters (I was back home at Christmas and one of these friends gave me a bullion coin worth about £1000), had close calls in Vietnam and Macau.
I have a pretty respectable life now, I didn't catch any diseases or do any permanent damage. I'm studying and working in a job that pays well and has considerable responsibility.... but I can't ever tell anyone about the stuff that I've done.
I can't unload any of this to anyone here in Britain, where my new life is. Particularly as it relates to romantic attachment, it's hard to have six years of your life that you can't share with someone you love. The question is if someone you were going out with told you about this kind of stuff, at the appropriate time, would it cause you to dump them?