Imagine you’ve been dating someone for a while and you think you’re ready to have sex with him or her for the first time. But first, your new partner wants to know just how many people you’ve slept with. You’re faced with two choices — if you say a number too low you could be seen as inexperienced, say a number too high and you might look like you get around. So what should you do?

 When Kelsey, Tecumseh senior, is asked how many partners she’s had, she says she doesn’t lie, but she does what’s necessary to avoid being judged. “I just give an estimate — if I give a ballpark number then I’m not technically lying but I don’t have to worry about them knowing my exact number,” Kelsey says.

 Though it may be tempting to lie about your number, Dr. David Eigen, psychologist and author of Men—The Gods of Love and Women—The Goddesses of Wisdom, says that the long-term consequences of lying are worse than the potential argument revealing your true number might cause.

 “Inside we all know when someone is lying — it may be just an uncomfortable feeling or underlying distrust but it’s there,” Eigen says. “Never lie, trust is earned and by being truthful you create trust.”

 Eigen suggests revealing your number in a way similar to the way Kelsey describes. He says that if you don’t want to discuss your past in detail you should tell your partner what you learned and how you’ve grown from your past experiences.

 Though she’s been surprised by some of her partners’ numbers, Kelsey says she’s never looked at them differently, because she feels like there’s an explanation behind someone’s number.

 While it’s human nature to be curious, Dr. Sybil Keane, psychologist and relationship expert on Justanswer.com, says there are more important issues for couples to focus on than each other’s past. She says that your partner’s past has nothing to do with your lives together and should be avoided if possible because the consequences could be lethal to a relationship.

 “A person may think they want the truth when knowing it may cause distress or feelings of ineptness in their relationship,” Keane says.

 John, St. Louis graduate, says that if a girl asked him to reveal his number, he’d try to direct his answer in a way that would avoid giving the exact number. Though he’s never had a girlfriend ask about his past, he says he usually lies when the topic comes up in conversation because the number of girls he’s slept with would surprise his friends.

 “Overall it’s just a number and not every girl that I’ve slept with was sex that I enjoyed,” John says. “I’m at a point in my life where having sex just to have sex isn’t my main goal.”

 John is not alone in his feeling that avoiding the truth could be beneficial at times. Tony DeRosso, relationship expert and founder of www.onlinedatingmatches.com, says a lot of guys automatically assume a girl has “divided by three” when revealing her number, so it might not hurt for a girl to stretch the truth sometimes.

 “If the guy asking seems like he’s quick to make a judgment call, a little white lie could prevent a firestorm of false assumptions,” DeRosso says. If your partner insists on knowing your exact number, Keane says it should be a one-time conversation. She says both parties should agree to never use the information in an argument and understand that once it’s discussed hat should be the end of it. However, she says these agreements don’t always work out.

 “Most times both will agree 100 percent, that is until the next big fight and then boom it gets used against one another in some way, shape or form,” Keane says.

 According to a 2004 survey by TNS Global Market Research, American women report an average of six sex partners in their lifetimes, while men average about 20 partners. Keane says people often embrace their “made up” number before their true number. “Women tend to downplay their number to seem like a ‘good girl,’ while men tend to increase their number in order to show their ‘manliness,’” Keane says.

 These gender-specific tendencies are supported by a 2007 study by the Journal of Sex Research, which reported that undergraduate men desire a significantly greater number of sex partners than undergraduate women. Over a one-year period, women were interested in an average of one sex partner, while the average man wanted about six partners. If these desired numbers were accurate, they wouldn’t match up with the actual numbers revealed in the TNS survey.

 Ultimately, you shouldn’t let your number of partners define you.“Whether you’ve had a lot of experience or none, being with someone you enjoy and are willing to be sexually open with should be enough,” Keane says.