Does anyone have 'faced challenges' as a requirement?

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I have one of the most interesting and hard-to-believe life stories on the planet. I've told exes to google my name and contact my parents in order to verify parts of my life story (and this was even before I knew what I experienced as a child was autism). And the drama continues until the present.

I honestly don't think I could ever date someone who hasn't had a similar or parallel experience. If someone hasn't at least faced and overcome a significant hardship in their life, I don't really feel a connection at all. I just realized this after going out on a successful date recently. The reason why I didn't feel excited around this girl was because there is just something missing in most people's lives that I have and would want in a partner. It's hard to describe exactly what it is. But it's really key in terms of whether I feel connected to someone or not.

I dont specify that but I guess its important for me too. My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic and brother is bipolar. All sorts of drama that goes on in my family and some of the stories sound pure fantasy lifted from a soap opera. Some guys on online sites state they dont want to date people with difficult families - i wonder if its because they cant relate to that sort if thing.

So I think I get where you're coming from.

Some hardships are more visible or open than others...I think that the vast majority of people have endured some form of hardship in their lives. I think that you should judge a person on who they are now rather than on what they've been through in the past, or you might end up missing out on some great people. Though with that said, a person's experiences do strongly shape who they are, and I will say that those who have overcome a significant struggle in their life often learn to appreciate everything that much more in the end.

I don't feel as though I'm special because of my tumultuous history, and it's not a significant aspect of my romantic life.

It can be really unhealthy to look for validation of past traumas through romantic partners, as far as I've seen/experienced.

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I do tend to prefer people who've had similar challenges or at least challenges of a similar magnitude. It can be hard for me to relate to people who've been coddled or had it easy and, on some level, I think I tend to feel resentful towards them. I do realize that problem is really with me and not with them, though.

I definitely see where you are coming from. I lived in an extremely emotionally volatile household (parents divorced, one of my parents has what I suspect to be major depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder), and I typically roll my eyes when I hear about peoples' family problems when their family members were perfectly normal relatively speaking.

I think it comes down to empathy; we want to be around those who can understand us, and honestly someone who hasn't faced very difficult challenges in the past will have a difficult time empathizing (though likely no problem sympathizing!) with someone who has faced very difficult challenges in the past.

No, I'd prefer almost if they haven't.