I’m short, fat, bookish, socially awkward, not quite divorced, and have a kid as well as a lovely 6-piece set of emotional baggage - as do most other people, they’re just better at hiding it. Plus I’m getting older and have fertility issues as well - most men would rather have a woman who can bear them a child of their own than one who already has a kid and was lucky to be able to get pregnant in the first place.
Because this is the most amount of socializing I do in a day. or week. Or… well you know. I never go out or do social things, so it’s hard to be datable if no one knows I exist. Then when I am out and about I tend to try to make myself invisible. And let’s not even get into body language! I was talking to a girl at the train station for awhile, then when the train arrived I went to another part of the train to hang my bike up and stayed there. I realized about 5 minutes later I should have kept talking to the girl, she was probably interested. But did I pay attention? Nooooo! I have absolutely no sense of fashion, and if left to my druthers would wear what The Dude wears every day. I take friends with me to go clothes shopping because I can’t tell what looks good on me or not.
OK I think I’m going to shut up now.
Woman don’t date me because I have too much money!
Oh, wait. That’s my pickup line.
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s possibly something along the lines of “Always hanging out with your friends or being at work and not having any time to hang out with the guy who is interested in you”, or “Professional Career type with no time for anything”.
You’d be surprised. My husband has a friend who’s been experiencing similar. The friend is one of the brightest people I’ve ever met – he’s a bit scholarly, although he’s never worked in academia. He’s been laid off at least 3 times in the past 5 years. His last job ended last spring and he hasn’t been able to find anything, not even a crappy retail job.
No woman in his age bracket will give him a second glance. His sister was the one who sat him down and said something like, “It’s shallow, I know, but financial security is right up there when it comes to what women want. You can’t offer it.”
I used to think there was something about me that put women off but I’ve recently come to realise that my own pickiness, cluelessness and lack of confidence were stopping me from from pursuing opportunities when I really should have. I’m working on all of those and things are looking a lot more promising than they have done for a long time. 
I’m a vegetarian and I want kids. According to several people online and off, both of those are huge deal breakers. I can get the kids thing, I wouldn’t want to date someone who didn’t want them, but the vegetarian thing is just odd to me.
I’ve been pondering this for almost twenty years…
I am [now] a middle-aged, thick (Christina Hendricks-shaped) woman in a city full of 20- and 30-something girls and gay men. When I tried the dating sites, most guys couldn’t look beyond my ample bosom and when they did enter into conversations, I got the “too intense” line.
Here in San Francisco, there are no middle-aged, single heterosexual men. If they are divorced, they are living out in suburbia and rarely come into the city. If they are divorced (often after 20 years of a sexless marriage), they want to get laid right away and/or they want it from a young, trim Asian woman. Astonishing how many men in this area admit to having the Asian fetish. Or, they are weekend fathers who are hoping to find a stepmom for their kids.
Having lived a life of being a “jack of all trades,” I think I am a bit of a know-it-all and I’m not sure how to scale back that appearance; I am interested in art, music, the theater, gastronomy, esoterica, literature, obscure history, film, wine and more. I can talk at length on any of these subjects and I know that overwhelms people. I know I’ll never find a guy who is interested in ALL the things that interest me, but the dating sites seems to have only produced the guys who want nothing more than to watch football on Sundays and get laid.
Oddly, I’ve always been intrigued with a guy like Frasier; I loved the fact that there were episodes where he and Niles would get excited about Tuvan throat singing (I’ve seen several times), fight a battle at work with the words of La Rochefoucauld, or talk about his recipes for cow brains. Weird that a fictional character with quirks that are comedic is my ideal guy, huh?
I could have been you, Fried Dough Ho, when I was dating. I had many interests, some rather obscure, and though men DID want to date me (because I was quite a looker), none of them really “took” because I didn’t like average, popular things like every other young woman. I read a lot and was interested in arty things, in fashion, in travel, things like cooking exotic meals just for fun! All the guys I dated were so BORING. Hamburgers, football, get laid, work on their cars. I found them so boring…when I said I wanted to see the Fellini retrospective at Artsy Theater, cook Moroccan couscous, go to a Halloween seance (for entertainment purposes only!) - they didn’t want to do anything more than pound down cheap beers at the neighborhood dive, and watch The Game at their mommy’s house every Sunday, waiting for the spaghetti and meatballs…I often think if I’d pursued fashion design, today I might be happily married to some fabulous gay man and living in New York!
Salinqmind, high-five, gurlfriend!
Your last comment had me crack up for one very hilarious reason: My Very First Boyfriend (from the second grade) remained my best friend until we were 18 years old and he went off to prep school. He was my fiancée in the 4th grade and when we reconnected last year (after 28 years apart), he reminded me of our engagement.
The funny part? He is, of course, gay and became a fashion designer for BCBG in New York, but now teaches fashion design at Art Center in Los Angeles.
And I’ve done the Akira Kurasawa retrospective, roll my own couscous, and HAVE attended seances!
We are sisters…
We were, apparently, born in the wrong places at the wrong time, and possibly adopted!
Sister <3 
+1
My issue was that I was just feeling down. I was a snarky, depressing person.
Once I worked out my own shit, I found that even a pudgy, poor, balding dude with a juvenile sense of humor can land hot, smart, sexy, fun women.
As for the OP, I may have to require a pic
I’m celibate, and plan to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. I’m quiet, shy and don’t often pursue company since I’m perfectly content to be alone most of the time. I’m somewhat clueless socially - I never pick up on signals of romantic interest, and have no idea how to send such signals myself.
I saw her first!
I think I’m fairly homely, but my wife insists that women are checking me out/flirting with me and I just don’t notice.
OOOOO! I <3 Fried Dough Ho. May I adopt you too? 3 Sisters!
/me is married, chunky, and does not think anyone who looks at her would date her… but you might ask me for cookies
oh yes, also too many books, very brainy, no tolerance for bullshit
That’s what I also do - all the women I ever asked for a date, I knew from education or common activities. Romantically the results are abysmal: I don’t usually get turned down for going out, but it’s non-dates rather than dates - the ladies pretty soon make it clear that they want to be friends with me. It seems I am a very good match for the role of ‘guy to hang out with on evenings and weekends when between relationships’ or, in other words, ‘pet eunuch’. I have got better this year at indicating sexual interest while being a reliably no-means-no kind of guy; this makes the non-dates more enjoyable.
I’m not quite divorced yet, but when I am, my stats will be: 30-something single mom who can’t have any more children. I don’t expect I’ll have many suitors, which is fine because frankly, I don’t really want to date anyone anytime soon. (And therein lies the biggest reason men won’t want to date me…I am looking forward to being unencumbered for the first time in 15 years!)
Possibly off-putting to some women would be my occasional habit of calling out to my beloved using the grunting sound of a startled bull capybara:
WUH!!!
I sometimes use this around the house when trying to ascertain where Mrs. J. is. She generally responds similarly, in a higher register:
WUH!!
Works for us.