I am a young man who has not had much success with women. I am not especially good-looking and pretty nerdy.
I always liked the idea of a long-term romantic relationship. However, my experiences made me think that it would not happen to me. This happened after I found out two different women I liked, both liberal, superintelligent, well-educated women, were attracted to tattooed, buff, dangerous "bad boy" types. I saw study after study that indicated women were attracted to masculine men for short-term affairs but not for long-term relationships. I saw no evidence of this dichotomy for men; men may prioritize physiques for short-term affairs and personalities for long-term ones, but there is no trait that is attractive for one and a turn-off for the other.
It reminded me of my diet; I like ice cream and fries, but when I try to lose weight I switch to a salad. I like salad enough, and I can resist my temptation for fries, but I still prefer fries. In the range of possibilities, the best-case scenario is that I find a woman who likes me the way I like salad? That's the best I can hope for?

I saw other studies that contradicted the aforementioned; indeed, meta-analysis have shown they are not very replicable. However, I later came across this piece by a therapist who says that women with good, kind husbands are leaving them for "macho bad boys". She has penned another article about how women, even feminists, desire to be dominated by a big, strong man. So even if I do find a partner, she is going to be secretly fantasizing about manlier men? Of course, men fantasize and cheat as well, but that is almost always because they just want to have sex with a better-looking woman. In this case, the women are more sexually attracted to men with dangerous and dominant personalities. Think about it this way: porn is a lot more popular with men than with women, yet the inverse is true for erotica.

I wouldn't mind being with somebody who may occasionally notice a more attractive person. We all notice good-looking people. What I am scared of is her thinking of other men as more exciting whilst seeing me as a kind but boring partner; the guy who she compromises her carnal needs for a good relationship.
Today, I saw a piece in The New York Times which cited a study proving that women are less sexually satisfied in egalitarian relationships.
This applies not just to conservative women, but also to feminist women. They desire equal partnerships but are sexually turned off.
The quotes are very revealing:

“I’m very attracted to you,” she said earnestly. “You know when I really crave you? It’s when you’re just back from the gym and you’re all sweaty and you take off your clothes to get in the shower and I see your muscles.”
Her husband countered by saying that this very situation had occurred that morning but that his wife became irritated when he tossed his clothes on the floor, which led to a conversation about his not vacuuming the day before when she worked late. He had worked late, too, which accounted for the lack of vacuuming, but still — she hated waking up to a messy room, and it was his turn to vacuum.
“Right,” she agreed. “I wasn’t focused on sex, because I wanted you to get out the vacuum.”
“So if I got out the vacuum, then you’d be turned on?”
His wife thought about it for a minute. “Actually, probably not,” she said slowly as if hearing the contradiction even as she was speaking it. “The vacuuming would have killed the weight-lifting vibe.”

Again:

One woman in her late 30s, for instance, who has been in a peer marriage for 10 years, said during couples therapy that when she asked her husband to be more forceful, “rougher,” in bed, the result was comical.
“He was trying to do what I wanted,” she explained, “but he was so . . . careful. I don’t want him to ask, ‘Are you O.K.?’ I want him not to care if I’m O.K., to just, you know, not be the good husband and take charge.” And yet, she said, his caring and his concern that she’s O.K. with what he’s doing are what she loves so much about him in every other area of their marriage, ranging from which brand of toilet paper to buy to what to feed their children to where their money is spent and which nights each of them can stay late at work. “I don’t want him to take charge like that with anything else!” she said.

Later:

So tricky, in fact, that when I was speaking about relationships at a conference and mentioned that I was writing about this topic, a large group of women who had just waxed poetic about “Fifty Shades of Grey” suddenly seemed outraged. Was I saying people can’t have good sex in egalitarian marriages? (No, I wasn’t.) Isn’t marriage better over all when partners have equal power? (In my opinion, yes.) Then why write about this kind of thing? (Because when a roomful of women who just raved about “Fifty Shades of Grey” don’t want me to write about “this kind of thing,” that tells me it should be talked about.)

A piece in Psychology Today cites researcher Marta Meana from the University of Nevada:

. . . the organizing principle of female sexuality is the desire to be desired. In her view, the delicate, tentative guy who politely thinks about you and asks if this is okay or that is okay is a guy who may meet the expectations of your gender politics (treats me as an equal; is respectful of me; communicates with me) and your parents’ preferences, but he may also put you into a sexual coma—not despite these qualities, but because of them.

So what am I to do? How can I be a good, empathetic partner and also a raging, macho, chauvinist caveman? If she tells me to do the dishes and I don't, then I am a slob. If I do what she says, then she's turned off.
The thing is, I don't want to be that guy. I like reading, going to art museums, watching films, and discussing progressive politics. I don't like being aggressive. These traits may make me be perceived as a good partner, but also one who will make my girlfriend sexually comatose.
Again, it is like how I eat salad even when I like fries. The thing that makes fries tasty also makes them bad for my health. Salads are good enough, but I will never like them the way I like fries.

Why can't I just be me?