Have you tried online? I work with several women who met their husbands online
Don't get me started.
Yes, I've tried online. Tried it once in 2017, realized how few were in my area and how unwilling those outside that area were in regard to dating outside a few miles' radius. After dozens of unanswered messages to dozens of women, I walked away in despair.
In early 2021, I tried again. I figured, with the pandemic, it would give me more time before meeting in person, potentially broadening my radius. I picked a subscription site (that way both me and the others had some incentive to actually put effort in), won't name it here but it has a pretty solid reputation for actually trying to match up people who are good for each other, and from what I could research, a pool that is well-balanced, men to women. Yet the same thing happened. After six months, I decided not to renew my subscription.
As for the apps... I have no interest in Tinder, or any app that makes me decide, solely on a picture and a lousy pickup line. The only thing I tried in that vein was Facebook Dating... but again, no matches to speak of.
I can come to one of two conclusions, possibly both: one, there is something inherently wrong with me that makes me unfit for the gene pool (in which case, why am I even still alive?), and/or two, that the women of my generation have no pressure to reassess their standards. Their biological clocks tick away, and they would rather travel the (developed) world. Why have kids when there's such a surplus population? they ask, all the while acting like they're not part of the supposed surplus.
I even had an older woman friend, out of empathy, attempt to set me up on a blind date, but the woman who was supposed to go on the date with me flaked out on the date before I even met her. That was the last straw.
It's utterly obscene the way I and a lot of other men get treated when they need a partner.
