So I found this comment on a post on r/dating by u/machone. This comment speaks to my insecurity in ways that I can't express in words. A lot of comments following it mocked u/machone (mostly made by women), dismissing as a loser.

I feel honestly trapped. I'm only 18 and I realise this is going to be my future. What do you guys think about it?

Just a guess: it probably wasn't your post per se, it may be an accurate feeling of having to be the best (top 10-20%) in order to get any attention as a man. And then on top of that frustration, to be told how to manicure your profile. It's like.. after I climbed the corporate ladder trying to become wealthy, figured out how to provide for others, discarded some of my friends who were fun but irresponsible, decided I'd be willing to sacrifice for you for the rest of my life, changed my diet and figured out how to cook and eat healthy, worked out for years to have a decent looking body, bought the nice car, figured out how to look nice, learned how to read people so as to not make them uncomfortable and how to tactfully deal with it in case I do, learned how to be interesting and funny, got rejected more times than I could possibly remember... The list goes on.

THEN you're going to also nitpick about my activities or friends ("why do you spend so much time with X (or) doing Y?"), you're going to compare my body or fitness to others, you're going to insist I spend less time working even though that goes against the whole providing for a family thing, you're going to criticize my fashion choices, whine that you want to travel more, complain that I'm not who you thought I was, and start having eyes for other men.

Here's the thing. That list up there? Most guys are innately driven toward one or two or three of those things. The rest we do just to pass the test.

What's the test? Women want the best man. Not an average man, not a good man, not even an above average man. The BEST man. The best men get attention from almost all of the women.

Yet most men happily settle for an average woman.

It feels unfair, because it is, and we are left competing for an almost unattainable goal. All most men want is acceptance. Forget acceptance, most of us don't even get attention. How quickly and easily you can be dismissed by women as a man is shocking considering how compassionate and empathetic women supposedly are.

I've recently realized that men are loyal to a fault, most of them. And in general women are opportunists, willing to trade off to a better guy almost at the drop of the hat. And almost any excuse to do so will do. This may not be accurate or true but it's how men are perceiving things to be, so it's worth paying attention to.