Uh, those have been around for a century and a quarter. How are they suddenly torpedoing your love life in 2018? Facilitating ease of escape?
Feminism is healthy, and contemporary culture isn’t anti-male: it’s anti-male being arseholes, which is also healthy. Men who don’t act like their penis is a voucher automatically redeemable for one girl are doing just fine.
For whatever mysterious, unfathomable female reason which has nothing to do with your attitudes expressed above. Yes. It’s all their fault.
I think the “for whatever reason” phrase is the part to pay attention to. I’m going to take a wild stab and say the “reason” is that the OP’s misogyny is radiating hate waves which are tangible to the majority of women in his dating category.
Advice to OP:
Get therapy, figure out what makes you so dislikeable (I guarantee the answer is not modern technology). Change it.
In defense of the OP - if we overlook his writing tone (which is likely to bring out a lot of venom in backlash responses - this topic always brings out the personal attacks) - dating and relationships ***is ***indeed at times an arena of contradictions, bias, prejudice, hidden agendas, unsavory motives, deception and discrimination.
Sure, it works out well for many folks. But for many folks, it doesn’t, and when they say that there is toxicity or melodrama in the arena, they are speaking 100% truth.
One person’s experience doesn’t negate someone else’s experience; everyone’s experiences are individually valid.
I was at the beginning of a very long dateless streak at 25. It was all on me. I had paralyzing social anxiety, so on the rare occasion I asked someone out I had to think they were interested. Unfortunately, I never learned to read signals. At all. I was no more optimistic about my prospects at that age as OP. I would say “I never learned to play the game”, but I meant it in a metaphorical sense. I’m sympathetic until someone tries to blame whichever gender they’re interested in. “I wish I weren’t so undesireable”, while tiresome (just ask any of my friends who had to listen to it), to me is easier to take than “I wish women/men weren’t too shallow to want to date me.”. Dating is way, way harder for some of us. It’s no one’s fault in many cases; it simply is. I can’t say directing the hostility toward myself like I did at OP’s age was healthy either. That was followed by a few years of despair, and then meeting some on willing to directly say, “I’m interested.” Pure dumb luck. Staying married for 22 years I give myself (and Ms. P) a lot of credit for. Getting the ball rolling just took me standing in the right place at the right time, where the right person inexplicably found me disireable. IMHO, it’s hard to look desirable with the attitude I’m seeing from OP.
I wouldn’t waste your time. Anyone who thinks that feminism and “an increasingly anti-male culture” are preventing him from finding a healthy relationship has female-repelling issues that no amount of golden retriever puppies and red convertibles are going to overcome.
Feeling shitty about dating is normal. Giving up is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you keep trying and put yourself out there, you will succeed. It may take years, but if you’re a decent person looking for a real connection (rather than mere physical gratification), you will succeed eventually.
“…and I said, ‘But I don’t want just a one night stand! I feel like we have a connection with continuous feedback’, and it said, ‘My communication protocols are asynchronous.’ Can you believe that shit?”
There is dating, then there is real life. What kind of woman would you want? Does she have to be beautiful arm candy, who is attracted to you because of your looks and money? Does she have to turn you on at first glance? Does she have to be at least attractive enough so that you wouldn’t be embarrassed being seen with her?
If you answer yes to any of these or similar questions, then you aren’t in the real world. There are millions of women who feel the same way you do on their side. They can’t get a second glance because they don’t measure up to the cultural appearance standard du jour. Some of them are probably at least as nice as you are. Try paying attention to some of them, and you may have more luck.
I come to this conclusion after many years of experience that was surprising to me. I was never much to look at, and when I was young I thought I would always be alone. However, I learned fairly early on to be receptive to character and personality more than looks, and to look at faces for what lay behind them instead of their surface appearance. And it worked for me, at my advanced age I have had a pretty full life that included lots of love and affection. As it happens, I am attracted to men instead of women, but the principle and the truth are the same.
Or not. I could spend vast amounts of resources, time, and emotional energy and achieve the same result as if I did absolutely nothing. And even if I do succeed, will it have been worth the resources, time, and emotional energy spent?
It takes very little “resources” to put yourself out there. It takes a bit of time, but you could easily get away with just a half hour per day, or so, of making and checking online profiles. And it doesn’t have to take that much emotional energy, either. Talk to some people. Maybe go on some dates. Most of the time there won’t be a connection, but that’s okay. Expect it, even. Learning and all. Doesn’t have to be more than a small part of your life, at least not until you meet someone with whom you have a real connection (and then you’ll want it to be a very large part of your life).