What is meant by “baggage”?

classicslayer · 2025-04-19T19:16:19+00:00

When a person makes their trauma your problem instead of treating you like an individual.

Grow_peace_in_Bedlam · 2025-04-19T18:43:22+00:00

When they become so jaded by the bad people they've dated that they can't appreciate and truly love a good partner. It's not merely that bad things have happened, but that they let those bad things interfere with the quality of the relationship with their current partner. Bonus points if she transfers her resentment for her past partners to her present one, using him as her surrogate emotional punching bag.

Superannuated_punk · 2025-04-20T00:47:55+00:00

Try this:

Before I met my wife, I was in a long term relationship with a woman who could be incredibly passive aggressive.

I wasn't an awful boyfriend, but being an early 20s guy, I could be dumb, insensitive and selfish.

But rather than telling me I had upset her, she'd tell me everything was "fine" and give me the cold shoulder for days.

I'd scrabble around in a panic, trying to work out what I'd done this time. I'd over-compensate in the wrong areas of our relationship.

Eventually, I ended up walking on eggshells around her. It was a big contributor to the dissolution of our relationship.

When I started seeing my now wife, I wasn't equipped for a relationship with a plain-speaking person. If something upset her, she'd tell me. If she was cool with something, she'd say it was "fine".

That was a trigger.

I'd go back to my old patterns of over-compensating and walking on eggshells.

Eventually, it came to a head, and through tears of frustration she said "Why won't you just believe me?"

That hit me like a bucket of cold water in the face.

I mended my ways and took her at her word. It's a much more healthy and productive relationship dynamic; but I still occasionally fall into those old behaviors nearly 20 years later.

That's baggage.

Emergency_Title1521 · 2025-04-19T20:36:13+00:00

Baggage refers to the bitterness, jadedness, and the cold transactional mindset she adopted after dating douchebags who get away with their awful behavior due to their looks/ vibes/ status. As a result she can no longer form pure, genuine romantic outlooks due to bad experiences, and then takes her anger on men unrelated to this. This can also be relevant to the apex fallacy, where women think all men are womanizing assholes whereas it’s because she only have eyes for those top men, ignoring the rest who are not like this because they’re not handsome enough.

egalitariandystopia · 2025-04-19T21:49:02+00:00

Strictly in dating, regarding women, I could take the liberty and simplify it as "bad sexual decisions"

MarioWilson122 · 2025-04-20T00:18:25+00:00

It typically means the woman has a bad attitude that she has garnered from past men that she was dealing with.

Yes its understandable at first but usually they are this way throughout the duration of the relationship and earning their trust is next to impossible.

Not all women do that but some do and it can kinda make you skepital of entering relationships with people like that.

On top of all that she can have a kid or kids from other men that she now brings into relationships so some men can refer to this as baggage aswell.

BrianMcTill · 2025-04-19T19:00:48+00:00

Consequences/materialisation/culminations of bad decisions which you then project to others to blame them instead of accepting the bad decisions you made and learning from them.

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just_a_place · 2025-04-20T06:06:07+00:00

Baggage = Drama and other assorted bullshit women bring with them which they would otherwise not have if they hadn't dated so many dudes in the past.

wizardnamehere · 2025-04-20T14:23:56+00:00

Baggage is a metaphor. It's a term for something which weighs on a relationship, that has to be carried by both parties.

So the baggage of suspicion from being cheated on is the lack of trust, the fear, the sets of behavior which have to be managed. or 'carried' by both people.

Tuatara77 · 2025-04-20T22:36:46+00:00

Well, "baggage" will differ from many guys, as the comments suggest. Personally I want a woman with the same past partners as me, not more, definitely with no stds or kids as a result of previous activity.

SurroundWide447 · 2025-04-21T12:37:15+00:00

Either subtle traumas (sometimes outright traumas) or the inability to contextualize what a good partner even is, on her end and the guys end.

Having relationships in of themselves isn't a problem. That's a positive in my book, if she's been mainly boyfriend focused. She can figure out what makes a great long term partner and how to be a great girlfriend. It mainly depends on how much casual relationships they partook in, just how sociosexually unrestricted her past is and how selective she was when picking a boyfriend.

A lot of women that have slept around come with subtle traumas, issues or high levels of neuroticism. I wish that wasn't the case but nearly every guy on here can attest to that. So I just air on the side of caution because this fantasy world where all the men she casually slept with were sweet, loving men that cared about her is just not true. She's going to have dealt with ass holes, she's going to separate sex and emotion in a way that is unappealing to me, she's going to be cold and have trouble processing emotions well, dealt with men that don't care about her as anything but a walking flesh light, men that have not cared about her feelings if they did grow leading to trust issues and most importantly, she hasn't spent time as a partner. You learn to become a good partner by being a partner!

For an anecdote, every woman that has slept around in my life struggles to figure out what a good boyfriend even is, they flat out don't know how to vet out the traits that make a good partner and I know damn well they don't bring much to the table but I don't have the heart to say that lol. I'm trying to help them though. I'm like how the fuck do y'all have so much experience with men yet are clueless as to how to be a good wife or how to vet out a good husband material 😭

chocobolamo · 2025-04-22T14:28:05+00:00

High degree of codependency, anxious attachment, and avoidance. It makes many leftover women completely undateable. They have higher standards due to more experience (and more hurt), but are low quality themselves due to the aforementioned traits that come with 'baggage'.

Men want a few things. They want a good sex life. They want peace. That's pretty much it.

These women lack the self awareness to identify and correct these negative behaviors and insecurities, then put it all on their male partner to deal with because if a man really loved them they would! The avoidance means the bedroom sucks, the codependency and anxious attachment makes them a chore in day to day interactions. It's like walking on egg shells for months at a time. Due to all the prior trauma these women are reactive, explosive, and generally just shit people to be around. Totally draining of energy as you have to baby them through the basics of life. They expect the disney romance, and provide negativity in return.

Younger women / women with less partners or baggage are just happy, bubbly, fun to be around. These women are not.

It's like i'm sorry you were hurt, but can you look at yourself in the mirror and seriously say you are surprised? Do you just skirt accountability completely and blame everyone else? Huge indicator for a victim mindset and no self awareness to understand that they aren't victims they are perpetrators.

Body count matters folks. If she couldn't make it work after 1,2... 3? partners - good luck! Find a better one they aren't hard to find. Hard to lock down if you haven't done the journey but in abundance if you have.

Logos1789 · 2025-04-19T19:24:36+00:00

One can understand why someone who was cheated on or lied to would be especially cautious in subsequent relationships without wanting to deal with that suspicion.

Another type of baggage that tends to be categorized differently is the effects of dating men who are more in-demand socially/sexually than their current partner.

Without that same sense of dread and needing to maintain her partner’s desire, a woman is more likely to not try as hard.

This could manifest as not eating as healthfully, not exercising as often, being less likely to defer to her current partner, being less likely to initiate sex, having less enthusiastic sex, being less outgoing with/proud of her current partner, etc.

More concrete forms of baggage include having a child or children already (many men don’t want to have children competing for their partner’s time and attention, let alone to help raise them), STI’s, abortion(s), and debt resulting from past relationships.

VladTheGlarus · 2025-04-19T19:12:49+00:00

Baggage is baggage - emotional trauma, bad experiences, bad decisions, developing personality traits not suitable for a partner, jaded, cynical, trust isses, insecuritiess, lingering feelings for a former partner, children, abortions, depression, therapy...

Especially after 30 - most single women have too much mileage at that point and you date those only if you don't have any other options.

Odd_Book_9024 · 2025-04-20T05:24:34+00:00

Baggage is having past sexual encounters at all tbh

Efficient-Baker1694 · 2025-04-19T19:18:18+00:00

Emotional trauma, bad experiences, bad decision’s, being jaded, trust and insecurity issues, depression, therapy, etc. Basically anything that happened in a previous relationship that changes how she views relationships.

TheLonerCoder · 2025-04-20T02:13:24+00:00

- Emotional: bringing trauma from past relationships/family, general drama, mental illnesses, etc.

- Financial: bringing debt and financial obligations like kids.

I wouldn't want to deal with anyone with this kind of baggage.

onlyaseeker · 2025-04-20T02:49:57+00:00

Simple:

Women get on relationships with questionable men, either unintentionally because they didn't know, or intentionally because they seemed fun/sexy/hot/good in bed/rich.

These men don't treat them well, which affects them emotionally, sometimes even physically.

They leave but begin a new relationship before they've addressed those issues.

"If you don't heal what hurt you, you'll bleed on people who didn't cut you."

It manifests as relationship conflict, and as using men as rebound relationships.

It also changes their standards for a relationship, in that they know those men were problematic, but they either liked some aspects of it, or they come to see those relationship dynamics and qualities as normal, which is problematic when there in a relationship with someone who is actually normal, because they have unhealthy or unrealistic expectations.

In the red pill community they refer to this as getting "stuck" on the last setting, or being an "alpha widow" (pining for the problematic hot/rich man that used them).

The problem is many women aren't forthcoming about these issues or their intentions, so men have to learn how to identify it from experience.

Many men have been "bled on" and know it's not a pleasant experience. It can be downright traumatic.

That's one of the reasons that men seek younger woman--because they are more likely to have less baggage. In other words, they are more likely to have less relationship experience, and thus, less negative relationship experience.

This is also why "body count" matters to some men. A higher body count increases the chance that they have had negative experiences with men, which may create problems.

Of course, it's possible for a woman to have unaddressed emotional issues or unrealistic or unhealthy expectations even if they have had fewer relationships, or have had sex with fewer men.

But since a lot of dating involves hidden information and unknown possibilities, it becomes a matter of playing the odds and doing what is most likely to get a better result.

Because women who have emotional issues and don't address them themselves and try to address it through relationships can be traumatic for men and waste years of their lives. They can also be quite costly for men financially such as if they get married and divorced.

The solution is for everyone to address their emotional issues before entering into a new relationship, and to not get into relationships intentionally for questionable reasons.

wtknight · 2025-04-19T21:48:36+00:00

I’ve noticed that a lot of older women don’t really trust men. They were usually treated poorly by some man in the past and it kind of scarred them.

Older men get scarred from past experiences, too. But women usually appreciate these men’s wealth. Older men, on the other hand, appreciate youth and innocence over wealth and baggage.

qwertyuduyu321 · 2025-04-19T19:05:18+00:00

baggage

what 'baggage' means in the context of dating to me and my social circle:

miscarriage, hates her dad, r@pe victim, clinically crazy (biplor, borderline, and all the other good stuff), numerous failed relationships, bad with money, etc.

Thinking about it, 'baggage' to me are complicated life circumstances. The above are from the top of my head. Obviously, there are more.

ExcelsiorState718 · 2025-04-19T20:57:22+00:00

Baggage can be many things from kids to trauma. If a woman was molested or in an abusive relationship she could have trauma if she has mental health disorders eating problems either over weight or under weight,body dismorphia and insecurities these are all forms of baggage.

Kids are big baggage if you date a woman with kids those kids become your baggage when you go out you have to take the kids when you come over the kids are there everything had to be planned around the kids schedules for school and doctors appointments etc.

A lot of women still have strong feelings for an ex they will never love you like they loved the ex and sometimes he's still in thd picture she's still talking to him theres often conflict from jeloys exex many men have lost their lives at the hands of a disgruntled ex boyfriend.

It's almost impossible to meet a woman without baggage and atleast half a dozen bodies which may or may not be a factor it's a case by case basis.

I draw the line at kids and mental health disorders I will not deal with either. No bipolar chick's anorexic or obese chick or depression I wont even deal with excessive make up or poor finnancial dicipline.

SherbertDense1415 · 2025-04-20T03:28:01+00:00

Baggage is stuff like

1) Being with a guy way different than me in character and values

2) Being with a guy with a huge dick or some amazing lover and having different sexual expectations from it

3) Being addicted to relationship drama, drama that I can't give her, which her little bipolar brain craves

4) Being used to experiences and highs that I cannot give her

Title	What is meant by “baggage”?
Author	Icy_Ad_4544
Upvotes	16
Comments	77
Date	April 19, 2025 6:40 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1k3364t/what_is_meant_by_baggage/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/what-is-meant-by-baggage.1550064 https://theredarchive.com/post/1550064

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