Why I Said “Three” When I Meant “Twelve”

Yes. More than once. I said “three” when I meant “twelve”, not because I regretted my choices, but because I feared how they’d be judged. Especially by men who boasted about their own pasts but still clung to the myth of a “low-mileage” woman.

It wasn’t a shame about the sex itself. It was a shame about how it might be received, how easily I could be labelled, reduced, or discarded.

But every time I lied, I shrank. I chipped away at my own confidence. And I started to believe the lie was safer than the truth.

It took time to unlearn that. To realise I owe no one a sanitised version of my history. Now, if someone asks, they get the real number or a better question in return.

Because my story isn’t about how many bodies, it’s about how I learned to value my own.