At least being men our dating prospects can actually improve the older we get, and for me I'll be pretty well off financially when I do live on my own, but that's small comfort in the present...
Maybe I’m an outlier, or just got lucky, but the first woman I started dating after a failed 5 year relationship ended up being conditionally ok with it - the conditions being that living in my family’s home wasn’t my “end game”, and that I was able to take care of myself. This was coming from an extremely independent woman who lived on her own, in a country outside of where she was born since coming to the US for college. Since then, she’s come to understand that living with, and helping to take care of family shows a degree of maturity and responsibility that transcends merely taking care of n=1 (yourself).
If anyone is in a similar situation, don’t be afraid to enter the dating pool just because you live with family, don’t be ashamed of it, and respect the ignorance of those who haven’t had the burden of having to support loved ones on their shoulders.
*edit (typo)
Also, by “end game”, she meant that I was planning on moving out at some point, which I am.
In most Asian countries, taking care of your parents is a filial obligation/responsibility deeply engrained in culture: an expectation for being a good child.
It is starting to change now due to Western influence and affluence though...but it is still traditionally the norm to take care of your parents.
My mother taught me young, "Watch how a guy treats his mother because that's how he'll treat his future wife." I've observed it to be true, as a grown woman. There is hope for those like you because there must be others who know this pearl of wisdom.
The only reason I mention that is because I recently started dating a man (not exclusively yet) who has just moved in with his Mom to save money and buy a home. I live with my Mom, who has Parkinson's, to help her.
I do not judge him remotely and find him incredibly attractive regardless. The only person who is ashamed is him! The logistics are the only issue, but we make enough that I don't mind renting out AirBnBs etc...
He is being financially responsible, and I am taking care of the woman who sacrificed her life for me to achieve my dreams and is now unwell.
Be proud, and screw those women with double standards who fail to look a little deeper. It's sexism. A lot of women unfortunately hold this stigma, but there are women like us out there who don't. Keep looking.
When a woman lives with their parents it can be a sign of a few things, such as self entitlement, failure to launch, and parents that still have control over her. These will make for a rough relationship with a woman in this situation. These could be taken as generalizations, but like I said, the negative stigma needs to go both ways.
It's unfair that this is stigmatised, I think it's a good and noble thing to look after elderly parents.
It's not so common in the west, but it's very common in other cultures, I think we get that part wrong in western society.
I couldn't bear the fact that my mother was in a nursing home. If she ever needs care I wont be sending her to something like that, I'll do what you're doing.
That sounds awful. How exactly do they go about this?
Similarly, if less vituperatively, some simply announce "I could never date a guy who lives with his mother!" immediately after, although I had not offered a date.
It is sometimes a struggle to be pleasant in these situations. I sometimes do want to ask if they would like to be abandoned by their children if they were older and fell upon hard times, but I restrain myself.
As @stronglikedan says in a comment in this thread, "most people suck." It's a bit broad, but it ain't wrong.
Right now it is merely a sad observation from the permanently sidelined.
From what I understand of your situation, you should be proud of what you're doing. You aren't living with your mother because you can't stand to leave the nest, you are taking care of your aging mother because she can't take care of herself (small assumption on my part).
If you were able to succinctly describe this in a way you are proud of, which shows that you are mature, responsible, and caring, I wonder if you'd get a better response.
I think the stereotype (as the article somewhat alludes to), is that young adults are living with their parents due to negative circumstances (economic, psychological, etc). It may be ignoring another underlying metric which is that as parents have children later in life, the parents are less able to care for themselves as the child reaches the age when most would be leaving the home.
In any case, there is no opportunity; I am not dating material for numerous other reasons and have accepted that.
At this point, I'd rather be alone the rest of my life than live a fake life passing tests.
I'm not sure of your age but I'm sure it'll be less of an issue as you grow older, and the dating pool around you also starts dealing with aging parents, and they understand the difficulties.
Most people suck. The silver lining is that you have a great bar for measuring them up against, to find the few that don't, should you decide to get back into the dating game. I'd work that fact in towards the end of a first meetup, since it would save both time and money.
Like I said, I went into it with my eyes open. I didn't expect anyone to give me a cookie or anything. It's just that the generalized hostility was unexpected.
(Or at least, an infinitesimally small number that are not already in a long term healthy relationship. It may be that we've just missed the opportunity to meet the high quality people in our earlier years.)
I've had my share of relationships, and still date from time to time, but usually I find the experience disappointing.
The answers you seek you will not find in Hacker News, I will not link to anything I do hope you encounter the solutions to your problems, as I did once myself after struggling with dating, some time ago.
However, I was unprepared in the extreme for the ambient hostility toward men who live with their mothers, no matter the reason. I do not attempt to date or anything near it (I have additional factors that would make dating ... unlikely ... already, and living with your mom is just gravy on top), nor do I "hit on" women, but there was a (to me) startling rate of women who, upon finding out my situation, make it abundantly clear that they would not date me, despite me not asking. I refer to this as "pre-jection."
I wonder if this sort of thing will continue, now that it is happening to a significantly larger segment of the population.