Insightful question.
My dating history is poor. I rarely dated around, I typically started dating someone and it quickly turned into a long term relationship. Also started dating very late in life, no real relationships in high school or college.
After that, 3 relationships, two of them 4 years long , this one 10 years long, and that's my entire dating history of any relationship. Never dated in high school or college, so zero short term dating history.
If I could go back in time, would do things a lot differently. At this age it's tougher to casual date I think.
In retrospect, all 3 of the relationships had different types of issues and red flags both early on and throughout, which I basically tolerated or ignored, just because I felt like being in a relationship was better than being alone/single.