Age being an unspoken factor there.
Living arrangements are very important for me. Hell, having a roommate would be bad enough. Living with parents in your mid 30s would be an automatic deal breaker.
Perhaps, but isn’t that something you would only know once you got to know someone pretty well?
It’s hard to imagine getting through a first date without figuring out somebody’s living situation. It’s not something you have to ask about specifically. You tell a funny story about a roommate or your mom making your bed for you and boom, we know your living situation.
It’s not the living at home part that is the literal dealbreaker being involved here, it’s that living at home is often an indication of a certain lifestyle, certain choices, certain family types, and certain personality types. Everyone has to narrow down the pool somehow and when I value independence from family priority 1 above all else, I’m not interested in a fellow who doesn’t hold the same view. It would mean that likely he isn’t on the same life track as me and doesn’t hold the same family and personal values as I do. That’s as incompatible as incompatibility gets right there. Who cares if he’s good looking and intelligent if our personal values are in no way similar, resulting in an endless personality clash if we hooked up?
Most people make snap judgement about people, and if there’s one thing this thread has proven, it’s that many many people find living with your parents unattractive. The great thing about living alone is that it’s so binary. You either live with your parents or you don’t. Humorless unattractive dimwits with esoteric interests in fanatical religions are going to have a very hard time changing who they are to appeal to you or people like you. But all **VeroTrem **needs to improve his standing with Sam Lowry is 2 months rent and a security deposit. Maybe a potted plant. Don’t live with your parents is helpful actionable advice.
I guess it’s not a real dealbreaker for me. I could have worded myself better, but I can sometimes ramble on. Some dealbreakers would be if he wanted a lot of kids and a stay-at-home wife, or if he was racist or homophobic. The guy not living with his parents is more of a strong preference. It’s not like I quiz everyone I meet on their living arrangements, but if I found out when first meeting someone that he lived with his parents and he wasn’t otherwise amazing, then I probably wouldn’t be interested.
And you might think it’s oddly specific, but people are allowed to have oddly specific preferences or dealbreakers, whether they make sense to you or not. **YogSosoth ** was making it sound like **Anaamika ** is terrible or shallow for not wanting to date guys who still live at home, and not be willing to give them a chance. I was just trying to explain in my own clumsy way that there’s nothing wrong with having dealbreakers or preferences, since we have limited time, and we all have our own tastes.
One of my good friends, Amanda, really wants to date a guy who is 6 feet tall or taller. She asked me if I thought that was bad or shallow of her. I said I didn’t see anything wrong with it, since she has her own tastes, as long as she wasn’t rude about it (as in don’t tell a 5’6" tall guy “ew! I would never date you, you are so short, that is super unattractive”), and as long as she didn’t automatically reject a guy who was slightly shorter thatn 6’ tall but was otherwise perfect for her. I think everyone can have their absolute dealbreakers, which they will never let slide, their strong preferences that they might let slide if the person is otherwise pretty great, and their slight preferences which would be nice, but is not at all essential. So my dealbreakers would include he must not want lots of kids, my strong preferences would include that he lives on his own or with roommates, and my weaker preferences would be that he has a Scottish accent and artistic interests.
One thing the Internet has taught me, it is that there are whole realms of people out there who make snap judgments about people based on issues I would never have considered significant. 
Taking action specifically so as to get on the good side of everyone who expresses a strong opinion on an Internet chat site about such “actionable items” may be a rather Sysiphean task - particularly, making major lifestyle changes on such a basis. Sam Lowry may never approve of **VeroTrem **, but since the two are unlikely to meet, I assume **VeroTrem ** will, eventually, get over any sadness created by this fact.
I would have thought the rather more significant issue is not what individuals in this thread think about the practice, but whether there exists a real stigma in society at large. I posted facts and an article on this very issue which indicates that, in the larger world outside of the inhabitants of this thread, that stigma, while it can still be found, is fading out among the younger generation. Sadly, no-one seemed to care about such things. 
I’m cool with people having their own preferences! Absolutely. 
My only question concerned how ubiquitous this particular preference is.
I don’t really know anyone on the Internet; I’m 29 and most of my friends are in their 20s and 30s. **VeroTrem ** is the one who decided to ask a bunch of people on the Internet if it’s unappealing. I suspect if he asked a lot of young professionals in Toronto he’d get a similar response.
Do you live with your parents, incidentally? I didn’t mean to insult you specifically or anyone who does. In **VeroTrem **'s case, he was specifically asking about living with parents and how friends and girlfriends would perceive him.
What I meant about the feedback being actionable is just that it’s nice to try and be constructive when people ask for advice. If somebody asked me why women aren’t more into him, I wouldn’t tell him it’s because most women don’t want to date guys who are ugly and boring as sin. What is anyone going to do with that? I’d say, Hey maybe it’s time to lose the mullet. Try some interesting hobbies - you might meet women doing yoga and then you can talk about mastering your ustrasana on your date.
Um no, I’d probably find that out the first time we met.
It makes sense that younger people wouldn’t see living with parents as a dealbreaker. Not only is this explained by economic realities, but also the perspective of age. A 20-something iving at home has always been given more leeway than a 30-something or a 40-something. Millenials are not especially enlightened just because they don’t see it as a red flag. They are just especially young. I’m curious how enlightened they will be when they hit their 30s and their 40s.
The 20-something who is looking for a SO would be wise to not automatically rule out a 20-something who is still living with the 'rents. Doing so would cause them to limit their candidate pool severely. And they would be throwing out a lot of good candidates. There’s nothing “red flaggish” about a 25-year-old who is living with his parents while he’s still in school and trying to save money for a deposit on an apartment.
But a 30-something or 40-something who is in this situation is rather unusual, and thus they do send up a red flag. The same assumptions and leeway that apply to a 20-something are not granted to them, by virture of their age. Now it is true that some people don’t mind dealing with someone with some issues, who is trying to get their act together, and/or wants to be especially frugal. But not everyone does. Just like not everyone is attracted to obese people and not everyone is attracted to smokers or cat lovers. Attraction isn’t necessarily rational.
That’ll depend on what the socioeconomic situation for young people is like over the next few decades.
Heh, no. I am a parent. I haven’t lived with my parents for decades.
Though the time is approaching when that may become an issue once again, as my parents are now very elderly and may want to move in with me … shudder! :eek: [Or worse, my wife’s parents may want to move in with her! Double shudder! :eek::eek: ]
Maybe you would at that. I’m pretty sure I would not, unless they chose to being it up.
I would not say it’s a question of “enlightenment” at all. It’s a matter, as you say, of economic and social realities. It is hard to sustain a cultural stigma when an increasingly sizable portion of the population is so “stigmatized”. As the articles I posted note, the proportion of uder-30s living with parents is now greater than one-third.
Also, I suggest that the focus is specifically on young adults - that is, those under 30. Dating people in their 30s and 40s creates whole other issues, typically. I’d agree that a 40-something living with parents is “unusual”, mostly if I saw that I’d imagine a messy divorce or drastic loss of employment being the reason. Someone who had always lived with their parents and are in their mid-40s would raise concerns for me, definitely. Whether they will, in the future, raise concerns for people in their mid-40s will depend.
I suspect that a lot of us old fogies who’ve replied to the thread said “Move out!” precisely because we could spot the hook (the risk of perpetual emotional dependency and never TRULY growing up) dangling beneath that shiny lure of saved money. We were assuming that it was the OP who was reluctant to take the big, scary step into full independence; now we know there’s a significant parental component involved as well (which is at least in part cultural). That changes things a bit, but the danger’s still there: moving back in with Mom and Dad may mean not getting past an adolescent worldview until they’re gone, and may require perpetually subordinating the OP’s own desires to the desires of his parents. VeroTrem needs to consider the full price of that “free” rent before he decides to take his folks up on the offer.
I cannot imagine how it would not come up before you got to know someone well as you stated before. How ones live and who ones lives with are pretty important attributes of someone you might date.
I guess my dating philosophy was rather naive, when I was dating. I usually just focused on having a good time, not on a rigourous interview concerning important acceptable attributes.
Well eventually having a “good time” means going back to their place or your place. Hence, how and with who ones lives becomes a pretty issue.