Aside from the reasons you stated here, there is another reason Melfi rejects Tony: she's out of his league. For all of Tony's masculinity and dangerousness, he's kind of a dumb lug. Melfi would get bored with him intellectually. Hilarious how these guys just randomly kill a civilian and simply run from the scene of the crime. Pilot episode Carmella would have shot the bear, wish we saw more of that instead of making her a damsel in distress. I think that Paulie taking half of the money for the cheque was more a thing of them ultimately squashing the beef, with the 50/50 showing them being on equal terms, neither of one being submissive to the other. Carm fell hard for the animal control guy. What does that tell you about how desperate she was for attention from any man other than Tony? And AJ's teacher? Whatever happened there. Great Episode to the start of the season what made Tony Think he can date Dr Melfi after he admits on cheating on his wife Multiple times and his Violent behavior.