Wife would probably object (not that I would want to anyway).

I can’t be bothered. It’s a lot of work, risk of harm and it’s just not worth the effort

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I have a really hard time setting boundaries, and will quietly sacrifice my own happiness and sanity to make others happy. I also have a long history of fearing being alone…

From Freshman year of highschool to 2 months ago (2006-2025, wow almost 20 years, time flies), I think I have been single for a combined total of maybe a year, year and a half? I dated 3 women in a row for a little over 5 years each, exiting one long term relationship and immediately starting another one. Each time I just quietly sacrificed and changed myself for years until I could go no further, and crashed out, super unhealthy. The last long-term relationship, we moved in together after 3 months, and lived together for 5 years through 5 moves and COVID, it was crazy.

After that last long-term, I tried dating more casually, but quickly ended up in another relationship that lasted almost 2 years, but she really hurt me quite a lot, and I was so unable to leave until I was literally hanging onto sanity by a thread, because I was so afraid of being alone.

I told myself after that, I was done with dating… but I quickly fell back into it, and actually succeeded in dating casually for a bit. I ended up with a really pleasant friends-with-benefits situation with someone who had their shit together and was really good at setting boundaries, which helped me immensely, and I started working on myself in my own space outside that. Of course, though, I met some other woman who I fell for, and started dating her exclusively. She did not have her shit together, and I found myself right back in my old habits of sacrificing myself to help her. This lasted another year and a half, until 2 (maybe 3?) months ago, I finally just dumped her because I was so so bored and so tired of sacrificing my own happiness. I even got to the point where I was able to articulate and communicate my needs and wishes that weren’t being met (which was a first), but after multiple talks, and almost breaking up once, she just never changed. This time I am REALLY done with dating.

I’m only just now starting to miss the physical side of dating, and would like to someday maybe find a similar FWB thing, but for now, I haven’t even thought about setting up a dating profile or trying to meet anyone with the intent of dating. These past months have been the longest stretch in 20 years that I haven’t thought about dating, tried to date, set up a dating profile, etc… It’s kinda sad when I think about it. I’ve made a lot of progress on the fear of being alone, and even though I have no pets and live alone in a tiny apartment, I am finding my own happiness and keeping the loneliness at bay with the most active social life I have ever fostered, so for now it is going really well.

Irrelevent side quest. I have other, better, side quests to do.

Been there, done that, I got dogs.

Never felt the need or desire to. Seems like a lot of work. I’m probably on the aro/ace end of the curve, but I don’t really care enough to dig into that further. I’m happy as I am, and that’s the important part.

10 years of being married.

Recently out of a long term relationship, and I am maybe almost ready to try again.

But my best friend and I have been getting a lot lot closer and have had a few chats about maybe considering letting a little bit of romance into our relationship. It’s something we’re both being very cautious about, but to be honest, I’m hopeful that it’ll happen. They’re the best person I’ve ever known.

I live in America and can’t drive a car. Also, I feel like a burden in general.

People have proved untrustworthy with my heart so now professional dates only.

Frankly, in my experience, dating (both meeting people and a relationship) costs so much time, effort, and money; yet provides little, if any, improvement in my life. The thought alone is exhausting. I currently prefer to spend my time on myself and my relationships with friends/family. This is less burdensome and much more rewarding. It may change in the future, but my last LTR ended over 5 years ago, I’ve been happily single since, and I’m coming up on 40, so that’s unlikely.

I broke up some months ago and im still not ready to start with someone else. But also i do shit first impressions 70% of the time, spacing from almost complete mutism to jokes and words you should not say the first time you know someone, so it’s difficult that someone new will catch interest in me.

I got dumped last year and I found it a bit tough. Since then I’ve been working on getting sober for long enough to really be able to work on myself, with a view to decide whether I want to stay sober or whether I want to go back to it.

I don’t really want to risk anything during this time. I miss dating a lot, I love being with somebody and getting to know someone who means a lot to me, but I just don’t think I’d be great to date right now and I am struggling to trust people easily since the breakup anyhow.

I’ll get there, though. And when I’m ready, I hope I’ll have more to offer than I’ve ever had before!

Just not in the right headspace and don’t feel like putting in the effort. I wouldn’t date myself right now, so I don’t think it’s wise to put myself out there.