What is required is that you try and don't get discouraged. It's a lot easier to stay home, play video games, and watch porn than it is to date. Plus, successful dating reduces time for video games.
This is true, but what you do need is access to women so that you can learn what they want.
If those women have a low incentive to spend time with less physically (or financially) attractive men, it’s going to be hard for the less attractive ones to develop the necessary capacities.
Exactly this. After hundreds of attempts and success rate 0 I simply lost any reference point. Should I invite her to museum or to the garbage dump? Come barefoot or in evening shoes? Say "hi beautiful" or "screw you"? I seriously have no clue.
I'm tired of this, "just keep trying and you'll land a woman" narrative. It's the same logic that capitalists use to tell poor people, "just keep working hard and you'll succeed". It expects people to keep facing failure after failure and never let's us admit that for some men dating is just not worth the pain involved. And then when they see the writing on the wall and give up, that's just used as more evidence that "men don't try hard enough" and aren't willing to face failure.
You don't have to be unattractive to find it excruciating, it's just generally excruciating by its very nature. Being in the top 5% or so of attractiveness is just the only way out. Dating apps are terrible and will one day rank among mankind's most awful crimes.
> I'm tired of this, "just keep trying and you'll land a woman" narrative. It's the same logic that capitalists use to tell poor people, "just keep working hard and you'll succeed".
Eh, I think in this case it is generally true though. If you approach dating from a perspective of finding potential mutual-goal life partners as opposed to some kind of sex-hunting or prize-seeking game, you probably can find someone. Society doesn't encourage us to think of relationships in this way though.
> It expects people to keep facing failure after failure and never let's us admit that for some men dating is just not worth the pain involved.
On this I will agree at least. If you find dating a damaging experience that makes your life worse, then it's ok to just not do it. Or at least find a different way to do it. Definitely not apps.
The other part which I forgot to mention is that social capital has been declining since the 60's (see the book Bowling Alone), so it's become harder to meet someone off of dating apps. The institutions which used to facilitate finding partners are no longer there so apps are becoming the only option.
Maybe this didn't come across well, but I specifically don't recommend using dating apps ever. Meeting someone in real life that fits those criteria is a matter of being places where people are that you're likely to get along with, and then, you know, getting to know at least one well enough to start dating them. It's not easy exactly but it is a heck of a lot more likely you'll find someone that way than trolling an eyeball-farming simulacrum of human interaction.
This is not a problem that can be solved on the individual level. We need networks that can facilitate forming social connections. And that (in my opinion) is a sociological project.