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Comment by at_a_remove | Hacker News Reader

I have been taking care of my elderly mother, who would be vaguely defined as "not well" in the Southern sense of things, since my twenties. I did go into it with my eyes open, knowing the kinds of tradeoffs I was making. I could live alone, but this was a choice I made to help her.

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.

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I am a man living with my mother. My mother is relatively healthy, she can work, but she cannot afford to live on her own (even before the pandemic), so she lives with me and I pay the rent, and it has been this way for me since my twenties too. I am always extremely hesitant to tell anyone I am living with my mother, and yeah, it puts a freeze on dating to the point that I don't even attempt to date anymore either.

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...

I also live with family. There are many cultures where living with your family is the norm until, or even after marriage.

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.

Is this stigma due to the tenet of "extreme independence and freedom" from the West?

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.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4389642/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6403016/

>However, I was unprepared in the extreme for the ambient hostility toward men who live with their mothers, no matter the reason.

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.

I am not meaning to brag at all, but I am a woman considered highly attractive by a lot and I get asked out quite frequently by attractive men.

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.

For what it’s worth, from my experience, it’s a bad sign when a woman still lives with their parents (mom). The negative stigma should go both ways.

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.

> I have been taking care of my elderly mother

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.

> 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."

That sounds awful. How exactly do they go about this?

Just as an example: one gal asked about my living situation, with regards to roommates. I was forthright about it, gave a little "what can you do?" shrug. I was a little startled as her vocal tone immediately changed to a mocking one as she delivered a "Awww, widdle at_a_remove wivves with his Mooo-mmy!" and then sneered. (Note that this person would describe herself as kind, liberal, thoughtful, and so on)

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.

It's a quality litmus test for partner material. I steered clear of anyone who took issue with me having to provide a material amount of care for a parent (and that parent living with me) before they passed. Someone who belittles you for being a compassionate human being has no place in your present, nor your future (imho).

As @stronglikedan says in a comment in this thread, "most people suck." It's a bit broad, but it ain't wrong.

If I were in a stronger position with regards to dating, I could certainly see that. However, I have descended past "beggars can't be choosers" into the benthic depths of "even if I didn't have this working against me ..."

Right now it is merely a sad observation from the permanently sidelined.

I have found relationships in the most unexpected of places and circumstances, and I wish you the same. There are good, decent folks out there waiting to be found.

I'm wondering if you're missing the opportunity here. You mention your "what can you do?" shrug.

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.

I of course have tried a variety of ways of phrasing it, as I certainly do not enjoy that sort of reaction. The most positive of responses would be a condescending acknowledgement that it was "sweet," a word I have come to loathe, at least with the intonation with which it is typically spoken as a response.

In any case, there is no opportunity; I am not dating material for numerous other reasons and have accepted that.

The "I could never date..." girl could have been an opening to challenge her a bit. If you want to date more you just have to come up with some good zingers to counter their "shit-test".

But do you want to live your life passing tests?

At this point, I'd rather be alone the rest of my life than live a fake life passing tests.

Always test your potential mate, big consequences for yourself if they don't pass them.

Bizarre. I'd like to think the majority of people don't fall into "baby talk" - that's just incredibly immature. To be honest, they sound like terrible people and probably aren't people that you'd want to date.

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.

Egalitarianism fur alles. If they've made it such an impolite comment, then clearly you've both disqualified each other, so you can be snarky about it too.

> startling rate of women

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.

I would say that you got unlucky so far, everybody struggles with something at some point in time, the kind of people worth keeping near know and respect that.

After multiple decades without so much as a kiss, I think "luck" as a factor can be moved to the bottom of the list of explanations.

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.

I agree with you. In my experience, there is an infinitesimally small number of people interested in what I would consider healthy, kind, honest, fair relationships.

(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.

> After multiple decades without so much as a kiss,

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.

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