This is why that list of “extenuating circumstances” sound a lot more like “reasons to not bother trying”
If you want to find love, you have to be willing to face challenges and work to overcome them, not look at them and say “welp, no point in even trying I guess”
You've rejected yourself before you even talked to someone because you won't accept the possibility of success, just varying degrees of failure.
Breaking this cycle is going to depend on an important factor: assuming that maybe, just maybe you're wrong. You're wrong about not being able to meet people, that you're wrong about not being able to get around as freely as others, that you're wrong about the limitations you have. Work and your friends' ages aren't the hard boundaries of your life, nor are they the only ways you can meet people. They're frequently the most convenient, but not the only way.
If you want to start having more success at meeting people, you have to start looking at these supposed limitations as challenges at worst, not impossibilities. And that's assuming that you're even correct in the first place. People can and do date while also having to rely on public transport after all – not just in Chicago or New York or San Francisco and the like.
But let's zero back onto the whole “trauma dumping” thing, the vulnerability and the feeling that you're still stuck in the same place, mentally.
It's entirely possible to open up to people and express that it's frustrating being single and that dating can be a nightmare without backing up The Trauma Truck and pouring everything out on them
We'll start with what trauma dumping is. Trauma dumping isn't venting or going on an occasional rant because something's been bugging you and you need to let it out. Venting is opening up and expressing yourself in a one-sided manner in a way that respects the time, feelings and boundaries of the listener.