I don’t have any problem if it’s labeled playing the odds. I have a problem when it’s set up as an intrinsic dichotomy. I think it’s wrong, and I think it’s ultimately emotionally dangerous, to think “If I do this thing, I’m gonna be sooooo sexy!”
I suspect that is the fame and not the guitar.
My mother in law, father-in laws, and some of my friend’s parents knew him - before the fame. That West Bank set stayed on the West Bank and raised their kids together. He was the guy everyone felt they had to invite to parties, and no one really wanted around. I suspect Bobby Zimmerman, from everything I know about him from the West Bank crowd that knew him - gave off that creepy stalker vibe that doesn’t get girls.
You want to play the odds, end up in prison on a serial killing rap. Women will drop out of the woodwork 
But the question is then “is that the kind of girl you are looking for” - because the guys in the band get laid a lot, but that doesn’t mean you want a girl who hands out in bars and dates drummers as a girlfriend - or maybe you do, in which case, being in a band if you enjoy it is a great way to meet girls.
Anecdote: I dated a photographer once.
She was pretty cool. And photography is OK, by itself. But I found something incredibly appealing about her and photography combined. I loved hearing her talk about photography stuff. I loved looking at her photographs.
Once, she told me that doing photography turned her on. I mean, literally.
I think that explains something. I wonder if Bob Dylan has a boner when he’s on stage.
By the way, if you are going to play the odds, you need to play them to your advantage. Tons of guys play the guitar. Tons play it well. Tons of them are handsome and personable. A guy who brings a guitar he barely plays along to a jam and then chats up the three women present is a poseur women are going to spot from a mile away. More girls might find a guy who rides a motorcycle sexy, but it isn’t a great way to meet a lot of women, and its kind of hard to work into a conversation without sounding like a guy who rides a bike because he thinks it makes him more attractive to women.
On the other hand, straight young men who do musical theatre tend to find themselves in an environment with a lot of dateable women and little competition, where socially awkward isn’t unusual.
I’m not sure about this. I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with caring about only one thing and nothing else. Actually, I think that can be the path to all kinds of success.
Anyway. Take Lindybeige. I find him incredibly sexy as long as he’s talking about weapons and armor. But as soon as he branches out into “wider ranging intellectual curiosity”, he instantly becomes an insufferable twit.
Can it lead to success? Yes. Can it lead to being an interesting person? Not really. By definition you’ll only be interesting to people who care about the one thing you’re obsessed with.
A fair percentage of guys that fall into the nice guy, let’s write them off because they misunderstand the rules, crowd is made up of the genuinely clueless, watching the rest of you do the dance, try to grok how it works.
I hate to see them written of as “nice guys” and I hate to see them further frustrated by instructions that can’t just be learned by rote.
I’m not sure what the answer is, as I said, I survived by not even trying.
I guess leave open the possibility that the poor schmuck you are either looking down on as a “nice guy” or as someone to be trained up into the next Don Juan might actually have a brain that works entirely different from yours.
There is nothing so hopeless as being told for the hundredth time, why can’t you just be like the rest of us, it’s easy.
There are a great many differences between not getting math and not getting relationships/flirting/etc. There’s a curriculum for math, teachers and textbooks, passing and failing, and just about everybody in the western world has been in a class where they had the chance to learn it starting from the basics. And while I have sympathy for those who never do “get it”, I don’t think their moments of frustration are in quite the same league as those of us who fail at pairing up.
I offered the comparison just to get us all a bit closer to being on the same page. It does seem to me that we might all have some similar frustration in our lives, something that the rest of the world takes to as naturally as breathing but that just utterly eludes us. I appreciate all the advice that has been sincerely offered in this thread, and elsewhere, but I don’t know any other way to express what it’s like to be standing in front of this hurdle with no idea how to get over it.
The thing that gets me is that when I’m interacting with someone I tend to get utterly absorbed in the content of that interaction, relating ideas and experiences back and forth. I’m not meta-analyzing the conversation while I’m participating in it. Somehow, I think if my brain was saying to itself “she’s mirroring my actions which indicates a connection, but it’s her turn to ask me a question” that I wouldn’t seem to be more engaged. It’s one thing to have the advice, and believe it, but it still needs to force its way into my consciousness in time to do some good.
Do I feel sexy when I bake cookies? No, but then I can’t think of any time when I do, really.
It matters who I’m baking them for. I think I’d feel just more lonely if I made them for myself. I took a batch last week to the woman who cuts my hair and they got shared around the shop, which is probably why that was on my mind. And it’s not part of some hidden agenda (“I baked her cookies, why won’t she have sex with me?”), but it shouldn’t be one of those things where if you say you’re a nice guy it only proves that you’re not, either.
See, I’ve always assumed that worked both ways; the things that I find attractive in women aren’t the same as they are for other guys. Maybe the women don’t understand that, either. Maybe they don’t know that I’m not looking for someone with Kim Kardashian’s ass, but for someone who is curious about the world and delights in discovering something new and interesting.
But if everyone is looking for something different, where does that leave those of us trying to figure out who is looking for us?
All we have here is a text forum where some of us can chat and give some thoughts about what we think is going on. You come in to say that it’s not possible for some people to benefit from what we’re saying. Okay, fine. What now? What do you want us to do instead?
Exactly. Everyone is looking for something different. But honestly, its that first response that is going to make something possible or impossible. I think its rare to end up dating someone that they didn’t have some initial spark with - and that isn’t likely to be guitar or blood donation or Roman History - its likely to be something physical. And what that physical thing is is going to vary - for both women and men. But if I think bad teeth are disgusting, and yours have fuzz growing on them and really needed an orthodontist you never got, it isn’t very likely that even if you are the person for me in a deep and meaningful sense, I’ll ever get past your fuzzy teeth. But there is probably someone out there who doesn’t give a damn about teeth.
The Perfect Person? 
Maybe once in a while we should consider settling for someone with Kim Kardashian’s ass for a while, while we’re waiting. Well, unless she’s actually Kim Kardashian. That, I couldn’t do.
Wait. What does her ass actually look like? I don’t really have any idea.
Googles
OK, no. Bad example.
Something to look into? Maybe it’s not an activity we’re after, but a situation. Or something else. Have you never felt sexy? For five minutes?
I just needed an example of something that the world (or maybe just the media) seems to be gaga over that just doesn’t do a thing for me. I’m not an ass man to begin with, and to the even minuscule extent that I am, her ass isn’t my ideal.
Not really, no. I’m not trying to turn myself on, and I don’t know what turns anyone else on.
I guess one problem with internet advice is that the people giving the advice doesn’t have any information beyond what we provide.
I mean, I’m finding you sexy right now. But I haven’t met you in person, so there’s not much to go on.
Really, though? Your problem is that there aren’t enough women who live up to your standards and expectations? You think that the women in the world give half a thought to what you, in particular, are looking for?
I mean, really?
Hmm. I play guitar and sing well, have long hair, ride a motorcycle, have run marathons, don’t get math, never knew anyone was interested in dating me unless she told me directly, and have degree in history. Guess that’s just what Ms. P was looking for. 
Why so accusatory?
I don’t think Robot Arm was saying any of this. I think he as just making an observation that both women and men don’t always know what the right person for them is looking for.
And I have to agree with this observation. I’ve attracted guys even though I’m a bad dresser, I don’t have long blonde hair, I don’t wear make-up or heels, and I don’t have a nice T&A. All I can say with confidence is that these things are attractive to SOME guys–many of whom are not attractive to or compatible with me.
By the way, if a woman is attracted to guitar-players, chances are she isn’t going to be attracted to a guy who just started playing a few months ago and who is deliberately trying to feel “sexy” with it.
I’m not sure I understand the questions. I don’t know if my standards and expectations are higher than those of any other guy, just that they’re different. I don’t meet someone I want to date every day or even every month, but I’ve wanted to get to know more women than the women have wanted to get to know me.
Do they give half a thought to what I’m looking for? Probably not; unless they already know me and are interested. It just seems like half of the equation (for everybody) is to be looking and half of it is being ready to be found. If there’s some woman who thinks she only turns heads when she’s out at a club with perfect hair and makeup, she probably doesn’t realize it when she catches my eye while wearing flannel and a ponytail in the aisle at Home Depot.
Because I’m not sure how to ask that without sounding accusatory. I’m gambling that Robot Arm can handle it, and maybe even get a bit riled up, so he’ll think about it and answer. I like talking with him. I have a little bit of a crush.
If the answers are “yes” and “yes”, then he has what you might consider a dating world equivalent of a First World problem. Just wondering if he really thinks that, or if it’s this thing. And if it is, he might be in need of a reality check.
Cool. Good answer.
Do you actually know which parts of that list made you successful? Do you think the history degree had much to do with it? Maybe it did. I’m thinking it was the marathons, but your wife might be of a different opinion.
I don’t mean that in a bad way. I’ll use it as data. So thanks.
I’m noticing that for me, understanding and replicating success isn’t all that easy. Not just other people’s, but my own. I’m looking back at my earlier relationships, and it’s tricky to figure out why my partners liked me. Which is why I haven’t really talked about that, I haven’t figured it out yet. Analyzing failures and disasters in my life seems easier.
I can tell you why a plane crashed: There was bomb on it. But I’m finding it harder to explain how and why it was flying in the first place.
Of course, I could ask my exes. Maybe I should send out some emails. I’ll get back to you.
When you were together, what did they tell you they liked about you? What things you did made them smile?
Yeah. If success is sexy to someone, or the money that comes with it, that’s a different story. But I doubt OCD is high on the list of what anyone wants in a mate.