I'm not sure whether I want to settle down yet.

Your focus is off. No one has criticized you for moving due to your job. Some have suggested you make some changes if a relationship is a serious desire you have. But honestly, if you were a catch, plenty of women would deal with the job issue.

More people have criticized your lifestyle choices and relationship issues...and with good cause. I wonder why you're focusing on the minor issue when the major one is practically slapping you in the face?

No one's surprised at why you are the way you are. Most of us have skeletons in our family closet, dysfuction in our lives, trauma in our histories. Most of us also understand that these have a serious impact on relationships and take our share of the responsibility for making sure we do everything possible to lessen the burden of that baggage to a potential partner.

This is where you are failing. You are saying: Bad things happened to me and therefore you (potential partner) should put up with my bad behavior.

Anyone who is emotionally healthy will walk away from this. It is not someone else's job to "fix" your bad experiences. It is your job to do so, or at least to show the willingness to do so if you expect a woman to take you on.

The focus on wildness and partying is going to lead nowhere except to more dysfunction. You can grow up and accept responsiblity for your circumstances, and make conscious decisions about what you're choosing and the consequences of those choices, or you can continue to play the victim and engage in relationships that are destructive for you and for anyone you become involved with.

Your trust issues are your own, as is your insistance that everything and everyone accomodate you. There are a lot of people who would be willing to be involved with you while you worked through those issues (if you offered enough in the way of relationship value aside from that), but the key part of that is - you have to do the work.

This is a tough woman who's probably been through more than you can wrap your selfish little mind around being honest with you. You sound like a whiny little boy who wants everything his way and hasn't gotten over the fact that life isn't fair. Grow up. Stop making excuses. Take some responsibility. Develop something to offer that someone of value would want - or keep doing what you're doing and accept the consequences of that choice.

I agree with you, it's just that my job is the only thing going good for me at this point and to expect me to give that up when I this is the job I have wanted to do since I was a freshman in college is a little offensive to me. Suggestions like the ones you mentioned are more hurtful to me than any obscenity imaginable. I probably need to take suggestions better though, since everyone seems have one and they are socially acceptable for most people though.

Also, I did not want to offend you. I think you are one of the nicest people ever and I kind of like. I may be tempting fate, but keep talking to me this way. I enjoy way more than I should.

You didn't offend me. Patience simply isn't one of my virtues, particularly patience with people making the same bad choices over and over and expecting different consequences.

Trust me when I tell you I am not one of the nicest people ever. I'm sure there are those here who'd be willing to back me up on that. I didn't say what I did to hurt you - I said it because it's clear you're hurting yourself and others with your choices - and scrambling everywhere to find something to blame instead of holding yourself accountable.

If you simply want someone to yell at you to grow up, call your mom. Or any one of your exes. I didn't make it to 50 without kids just to take one on now - even a virtual one in cyberland.

Good luck to you.

Some men really seem to prefer the women who hurt them. They want to be whipped into shape and they don't think they can get there on their own.