Back when I first started getting into this stuff, I started making an effort both to date and to make friends/be more social. Having social anxiety, I didn't have much of a social life, and so I made a push to change that. I thought that the making friends/being social element would also help the dating/sex element, because it provides social proof and allows you to meet more people.

I became the guy who strikes up conversations with strangers and makes friends with them. The guy who says "yes" to everything. I have a reputation for knowing a wide swath of people and bringing people together through big parties I host and stuff. Everyone sees me as a social guy and I'm constantly getting compliments on my personality/niceness/chillness and whatever.

And yet I'm not really getting laid.

It's getting to the point where I often feel like meeting a new person and making a new friend is a chore. There are already enough friends I don't hang out with frequently enough, and so making a new friend feels like having to fit yet another person into my hangout rotation and busy schedule between grad school, band, and work responsibilities.

I hate to admit that much of the time that I'm just chilling with some friends, I'm really wishing that I was on some hot date instead. I don't want to think this way, because I don't want to take my friends for granted. I keep on thinking, "well, I could lose all of my friends and then look back on these days and wish I were back in them. I should appreciate these people." And I do appreciate them. But much of the time I just feel bored and know that where I really want to be is inside some attractive woman.

Some women express interest in me, but not the ones I'm into (at my last party, for instance, this woman I know because she slid into my DMs brought me an elaborate gift, even though she barely knows me and we've hung out once; not even the last woman I was seeing regularly ever bought me a gift). I approach women regularly, but the ones I'm into never reciprocate. I think not getting laid but having a lot of friends is more frustrating than not getting laid and also not having friends. If nobody likes you, then it's pretty obvious how to solve your problem. "Clearly, I just have an awful personality or smell bad or some shit. I should work on that." If everybody likes you and is constantly telling you that you rule, and yet nobody you're into is into you back, it's a mindfuck.

I know the hypothesis that you probably have from reading this right now is "you're probably acting differently around women you want to sleep with than you are around everyone else because you're putting to much pressure on yourself, which is why you're great at making friends but not great at connecting with people you're interested in. If you be the self you are around everyone else around these girls, they'll be interested."

But I don't think it's this. If I approach a group of women, the less attractive ones are interested in talking to me and the hot ones often just walk away and leave the group. All these women are seeing me behave the exact same way. If I meet a group of women and get all of their contact info and invite them to something, the less attractive ones respond and the hot ones don't. They all met me at the same time and saw me behave in the exact same way.

It's making me think that, despite lifting, despite dressing well, I'm just not good enough to attract who I want to attract. Like no amount of muscle I put on and no amount of care I put into my outfits will allow me to compete with somebody taller who has a better face, and that I just have a certain place in life that I can't transcend. I don't want that to be the case and want to believe that any guy can get the quality of woman he wants, if he works on himself enough, but I worry that you can only do so much before you hit your natural cap.

Anyone who's been in a similar place who can help with this?