Hello, Bored Potato--Thanks so much for your thoughtful response. You and another reader, Dan Bloch, helped me clarify some of it. Basically, I'm not attracted to broken men. I'm attracted to men who have had some not-so-easy life experiences but have not been broken by them. The problem is distinguishing between the ones who are broken by past experiences and the ones who aren't. I'm so impressed by people who are either stronger because of those experiences or strong enough to not let those experiences break them. Either way...as I've aged, I seem to be able to detect the former more easily these days so rarely engage with the so-called 'broken' ones anymore...I really believe we can learn, grow, and change our own 'poor' habits...One of the first steps seems to be pattern recognition...and then we can grow from there...Thank you again for reading!--Lee