Stolen shamelessly from /u/pm_me_goat_gifs here https://old.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/dgg4or/should_i_give_up_on_trying_to_date/f3bhr12/?context=3

  • You've done self-improvement stuff which is solely focused on you. It made you more confident, but didn't bring you any dates. Your only motivation to exercise is to make yourself attractive to women. So this advice seems like its not really that useful at all.

  • You've read lots of advice from women which says "Leave women alone. I don't want to be approached." When you comply with all of them simultaneously, you conclude that there is no real-life environment where it is acceptable to approach women.

  • Your personality deviates from the traditionally-masculine script. You naturally value Active Listening and being emotionally supportive. You've seen signs that most women don't find this attractive.

  • You feel rather upset about 15 post-puberty years of feeling lonely. You feel more upset that when you read about this problem, you see a load of people dismissing that problem as being a sign of a Male Entitlement. You see lots of people shaming straight men for their sexuality. It makes you feel awful and like the endeavour of finding romantic love is pointless.

Did I miss the mark on anything?

Married late-20s straight man here.

I have a few responses.

1) I sympathise.

Your problem is real. Your problem doesn't make you a bad person or a creep. Your problem does deserve a sympathetic ear. I suspect you would find some catharsis in reading https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/ and then https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/deradicalizing-the-romanceless/

2) You can do this, despite difficulty.

I strongly suspect your problem is solvable, though with a sort of difficulty that people often find hard to grapple with. It requires enduring emotional discomfort, trying things despite lots of randomness in the results, re-evaluating your strategy and progress every 2 weeks, and learning new habits.

3) Find ways to learn tactics which enable you to be successful at being emotionally honest.

The reason it might require study is because the goal isn't to be honest just to yourself, but to carry the right meaning to other people. Anyone who's ever taken a class on public speaking or bedside manner is saying that communication is hard and worth studying. Why should sexual communication be any different? It is worth finding a therapist or coach, but it is also worth taking the time to seek out someone you trust to point down a healthy and consensual path.

See from this summary if this book would be helpful. https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/models-a-summary/

Also look at Charisma on Command

Remember that your goal is to learn things which you can turn into intuition. If something doesn't make sense, it is worth following that feeling and asking about it.

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4) Develop a healthy relationship with rejection.

Getting rejected isn't about you. Its about what she thinks about the you-her system. I have heard good things about the rejection therapy game but haven't looked into it.

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5) Be more gentle with yourself and your maleness.

Words of anger and disgust at male behaviour are probably swirling around in your head far more than is actually reasonable. Most women generally like men. Social media amplifies the most dramatic hot takes and hits your brain with them when you're most emotionally vulnerable -- during your morning poop.

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6) Worry less about catastrophe.

Find and follow a reasonable set of guidelines to avoid acting in a way that a reasonable person would find threatening. Don't try to 100% eliminate the possibility that you creep someone out. You can't do it and you don't have to. Being accidentally creepy on rare occasion happens to everyone and almost everyone is capable of brushing it off.

There are people who have had serious trauma at the hands of men. They are still processing that trauma and need spaces where they can do that. But it is a bad idea to go to those same spaces looking for dating advice because what they say won't be a measured response to your situation but a response to theirs.

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7) Think about the broad set of interactions you want to have and choose your activities based on that.

If you genuinely couldn't give two shits about yoga, don't do more than try it out. Take some time and imagine some interactions with a girlfriend which you'd find fun and satisfying. Do a Freewrite Pomodoro: Set a 20-minute timer and force yourself to keep listing out bullet points. This list is private so go wild. These can be sexual. These can be arbitrarily dorky. These can be boring.

  • Making escalatingly-wierd fart noises? Goes on the list.

  • Trying to make apple pie, but failing and eating the resulting apple crumble? Goes on the list.

  • Traveling to Morocco and taking a Tagine cooking class? Goes on the list.

  • Eating her out while she tries to play Mario Kart? Goes on the list.

  • Running around with a broom between your legs and a robe and wizard hat, trying to body-check someone? Goes on the list.

  • Going to real estate open houses and whispering critiques of the interior design and home layout to each other? Goes on the list.

  • Watching a movie about the 1918 flu pandemic? Goes on the list.

Now, once you have this list, go through and for each one, see if there are any communities which correlate with that activity. Then, sort by their gender ratio. Go there and first see if you enjoy the community. Make a few friendly-acquaintances. If you're not genuinely enjoying building acquaintance-relationship with the non-datable people there, ask yourself why...maybe talk to a friend or therapist about why. "these particular people are habitually rude" is a possible answer, so be willing to move to a different community with the same activity.

8) Think about the positive interactions you're able to create.

  • Can you cook?

  • Can you use your knowledge of anatomy to learn to give great massages?

  • Does dancing bring you joy?

  • Do you like telling stories?

  • Do you like being silly around kids?

  • Do you want to learn how to play the guitar?

Do the same thing as in #7. List these out and then list out environments where you can display these. Then sort by the likelihood that there will be a dateable straight women there. Be willing to learn a skill if you've already been kinda wanting to do so.

9) Learn to read avoidance vs interest in body language.

It will help you act and speak with more confidence. To start, read What Every Body is Saying and watch some of Charisma on Command's videos.

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10) Actually ask people out.