I would hope not

Yes. It's hard enough to meet new people why add in the difficulty of negative association with their name because of prior unpleasant experiences.

My ex and I were both very independent people. She had a lot of good qualities, but intimacy was not one of them. She wasn’t much of a cuddler or hand holder... we didn’t really do any “cute” things together. Which at the time, I didn’t think that stuff was important and didn’t really care in the beginning. But after 6 years together it got pretty lonely. Turns out it is important to me after all. And I think we were a bit too independent. I’d like to find someone as more of a partner instead of someone who we just each do our own thing and see each other when we see them.

For example, if I went on a dating site and exchanged messages, then I called a gentleman's phone number, there are certain buzzwords that I can hear in an initial phone conversation that are off-putting to me. I would typically ask the gentleman "What is your present situation right now?" He might reply he lives in a stripped down one bedroom apartment in a bad section of town and he needs someone to share bills 50/50. He is homeless and he wants to come to my house, or he does have a house but he lost his job and consequently three of the the bedrooms are rented and he set the money to pay bills, so there is a house but there are lodgers bunking in. The gentleman lives in a three bedroom apartment with two roommates. The genlteman lives with his elderly mother and the house is really hers, but he cannot leave her because her disability benefit isn't enough for her to pay her bills. His pregnant adult daughter returned home, in the future he will be playing daddy to his bastard grandson. The gentleman drives uber, he lives in a weekly hotel, he has an ex wife that he is still simping for. The gentleman is in the process of putting his young adult children through college. The gentleman mentions that his sister is the executor of his will and he has two nieces he is close to. The gentleman's cheerleading teen daughter and child prodigy pianist son live with him, his wife is dead. Someone else is living an enriching life with fully financed gymnastics, jazz dance, ballet, yoga, sculpture, pilates, painting classes and piano lessons while I am proposed to hump, pump, pay bills, cook meals and clean the kitchen. Someone else gets a large, private room with a large closet while I get nothing more than eighteen inches on the left side of the wardrobe and half of a queen sized mattress. I worry that my primary role is to to do the horizontal mambo, I will arrive bringing both p*$$y and money, there is literally nothing in this situation for me, someone else is riding a financial gravy train. My social status in the household is zero, I would be a low priority on the priority list behind four other people. There is some triangulated jealousy because I am only proposed to be starfished out on the bed agitating like a washing machine drum and no one is paying $60,000 a year for me to get my MBA at Wharton school. I would potentially not be the lady of the house, someone else is accruing equity in the real estate every time I chip in. My role is to put money not a shared pot while someone else eagerly siphons resources from that pot. Overnight I am expected wail with a crescendo of exaggerated moans like the sound track of a porn film but by day I will pay bills and clean the house. His ex wife who won't ever touch him gain still jointly has her name on the property deed to the home. Other people are better socially and financially positioned than I am. The man has a pathological relationship with his sister who calls him and hits him up for money to pay her medical bills. His sister has no husband to pay her bills but if I were to marry her brother then he is still the designated person to that she as an married women needs to call to pay her bills. Meanwhile the $400 I kick in for food is a shared resource enjoyed by many disrespectful teens who eat but don't kick in. On the day he dies, his adult daughter will arrive to the home to ask me how soon I can be out. His adult son is the beneficiary on the life insurance. I have to change the shitty diapers for a baby thats not mine so someone else who made a bad decision can complete school. He is in a polygamous marriage to his existing first wife, but she has retired from sex forever, and thats where I come in to the picture. She still lives in his house and eats his food, and I do 100% of the "scut work" she didn't want to do. She brings no continuing value to the equation, yet I get nothing more than the same share she gets, 50/50 division of resources. I provide the $1200 overnight ultra porn package deluxe 28 days of every month, offering $36,000 worth of adult services on a barter swap for a room valued at $600/ month. I add value and other people extract benefits.There is a social hierarchy and I am nobody, no where in the social order. If I want to, I can hump and pump my way down the path to no where, but I cannot find a way to benefit myself, not in any way. There is nothing in this situation for me from day one and I am helpless to change this.

I have been in love several times dated many females it seems like I'm a lot more trigger happy than when i was a younger guy. I'm just not up for games anymore and feel clchei saying that but i don't feel very handsome although I'm one hell of an experienced man who has crawled into his feet.

I experienced the opposite side of this, someone online (on a dating site) was chatting with me for a few days, it was going very well for both of us, then it came out that I'm a corrections officer. She instantly said she couldn't see me, as mine is one on a list (her words) of careers that she doesn't date.

I had never encountered the notion of not dating someone based on their career before. I mean, I can see "drug mule", then you don't date that person based on the career. "Serial killer", "meth lab operator", those as well. "Uber cab driver" would be borderline. But any legitimate career, you earn money, what's the beef with the career?

@Kojaksmom nope for me it's the slightest whiff of narcissistic traits, been there not going again. Not sure about music choices being a shallow reason I once had a date with a guy who walked into my home turned off my music and put on some 'banging tunes' that gave me a headache... rude and uncomfortable

Even though my past experiences included good as well as bad they also sent messages of what to watch for. My last experience was nothing but good and told me things can work out very well. Let's see, she was from Iran, an elementary school teacher, loved Middle-East music, had hobbies that were different than mine, spoke a different language etc. Everything only increased my knowledge and experience base. That said I could never be with a hard-core conservative or hard-core liberal.

Every time we “write someone off” we also write ourselves off that person’s life. It works in both directions. In a way it’a perfectly resonanble and natural state of affairs: monogamous coupling requires that all but one be deemed insufficient. But it can become a habit.

In my case, my ex decided that our relationship was over. I wanted to keep the marriage.
We had three kids. But I was getting nowhere. After one year I filed for divorce. We were divorced two years ago. I’ve dated since that time, and I started two relationships that I thought were going somewhere. Those relationships have ended, however. We ended on good terms, but there is no willingness to talk about anything else. It’s as if we were “dead to each other,” but better, because we’re not dead.

I communicate with my ex about the kids. There appears to be a mutual willingness to carry on a conversation. And it’s difficult to replicate the 20 years of good and bad history that we accumulated together. This perspective-this time together-helps us put off the unsettling feelings that we get when our partner goes on “brooding mode.” Brooding mode, the mindset that helps us keep an accurate and firmament-filling account of our partner’s failings, is a common human condition. It’s capsulated in the saying “familiarity breeds contempt.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it would seem that relationships, like everything else in this universe, have certain duration, a “lifespan.” It’s easy to start them, and it’s easy to finish them. The longer-lived ones are sustained by everyday, commonplace things that are mutually interesting. And by letting bygones be bygones.

Me? Discriminatory? I wouldn't be surprised! But is it reasonable and justifiable?

Barry Manilow is a dealbreaker. I prefer your first name not be the same as my ex wife but if need be I’ll give you a nick name. I have no intentions of ever getting married again... I don’t see any benifit in the institution for men. Barry Manilow is not a shallow reasonlol

I don't know if you are going to get a lot of good answers here, but I think this is a good thing for us to reflect on, and challenge certain assumptions we make about people.

Nooo.... I am an equally opportunity... Never mind, it doesn't matter what I say, does it?

Hobbies and music choices maybe. Names not so much. I grew up a Smith, I love unusual names. Profession, maybe. I probably wouldn't have much in common with someone who works for ICE right now. Ethnicity is not an issue. Race is a human construct and we all bleed red blood.

Of course they do. As illogical as it sounds, if you've had your heart stomped on by a redhead, for example, then you might be reticent to date another redhead - even one who's nothing like the first one.

If my dog doesn't like them, I don't like them.

Well, I dismiss people who seem like narcissists or psychopaths and anyone with an addiction because of bad experiences in the past. I also don't get together with cruel people who have no compassion for animals or people. I don't think that's too extreme!

Sometimes.