I feel like I have to say the obvious here but here we go. Im a woman and I can guarantee you appearance matters. Thats the first thing you notice because its apparent, people dont carry their personalities written on their face. If you are a really nice guy but the girl doesnt find you attractive, they will place you in the friendzone since she probably likes you as a person but doesnt have any sexual/romantic interest on you.

With that being said though OBVIOUSLY personality matters more and that will get you to the end game (relationship), since you cant just maintain a healthy relationship purely based off looks, and everyone gets old and "ugly" someday.

The problem I see is that a lot of men dont really care that much about how their appearance. Meanwhile women do a thousand things in their monthly routine to look nicer and more presentable. I will name some of the things: buying makeup, new clothes, doing their hair in the salon(cutting+dyeing their white hair+hydration) not to mention doing braids, putting extensions or having a coloured hair which requires almost weekly treament, nails, skincare, shaving/eyebrow, eye lash "implants", + other cosmectic treatments that some do like botox, lip filling etc.

I genuinely think thats one of the reasons why women have a better luck when they are young (later in life it switches to money over appearance). Men, i know the dating scene is hard and it can feel unfair that you have to take a lot of action and its easy to feel like you are not good enough. You are good enough. A lot of the women out there arent naturally beautiful, they just put effort into looking that way. You can also do the same, theres so many little things you could do that would bring you to the game again. Tip from a former ugly duckling woman :)

Edit: its okay if you are ugly or dont wanna take care of urself but just be realistic and know you will most likely only be able to get the ugly girls, and even they might be repelled by the lack of self-care.