I don't know. I get where you're coming from, I just never really did that. I mean, within the first week of knowing each other William and I had argued about religion, politics, social things like girls not being able to propose and what-not. I was myself from the very beginning because I wasn't trying to catch/trap him, I was just trying to get to know him, and he did get me, from the very beginning. He understood me more than anyone I've ever met, and he called me out on things that most people I've been friends with for years wouldn't have even been bold enough to say, and I did the same to him. He completely changed me, and I changed him, and we're both better for it (because I'm no longer under the delusion that the Earth is less than 10k years old...).

I just feel like, if you put everything out on the table at the very beginning, there're no big surprises later (like "oops, I forgot to tell you I used to be a man? my bad...")

One of the first conversations we ever had was about marriage and proposals. I said I wanted to be proposed to with a ring pop, and he said he didn't want to feel like he ~had~ to be the one to propose. I said I want a wedding that's so cheap it's practically free, and he said he'd be just as fine going to a court house and just signing the papers and being done with it.

He showed me Doctor Who, and I showed him Bo Burnham (knowing full well how offensive BB can be, and thinking that if William couldn't at least chuckle at it, we were never going to work as more than friends).

It just seems like if you play "innocent naive little girl" and slowly letting the strong minded feminist eek out over time, you're attracting the kind of guy (or jerk...) that is attracted to weak willed women, and who will resent the real you the more you show it.

Does that make any sense? I'm not trying to tear you down or anything. I just think people should (clichély) be themselves--unless "themselves" happen to be assholes, in which case, I'm all for them bottling that up and choking on it.