I'm (M21) a engineering nerd at a large midwest college. I've had basically no success with dating for all of college. I try to be interesting, my friends think I'm funny, I keep up my appearance (I'm 6' 170 lbs and try to dress nice) and am decent at conversations. However I guess I've had a lot of bad luck or I'm actually just very unattractive.
I have great grades and internships because that's what I've focused on instead of friends and social life. I'm going into my senior year of college and I was planning on going to bars and being more social before covid changed everything.
Here are some of the emotions I've been struggling with:
I feel ugly and lonely every single day. Ideas like "no one finds me attractive", "there's something wrong with me", "i'll always be alone" are always on my mind. Avoiding those thoughts seem basically impossible especially when there is nothing else to do and when dating is in every TV show and song. I have a group of about 9 social friends and 9 study friends of which about 16 have a relationship so that makes it even harder to ignore. Girls I'm friends with each get like 100 tinder matches and some have an ability to get a new date with a guy literally every week. Some of the guys I know brag about hookups or don't make time for me anymore when they get into a relationship.
I have had crushes on maybe 8 people from classes that all had boyfriends and talked to girls at parties that were "talking" with other people. I have been told people meet at libraries or whatever but there's no easy way to go up to someone without making it clear you want their number and even then they have nothing to base their answer on besides looks. I joined tinder and bumble, had my friends take nice pictures of me, and got a total of like 7 matches. Only 2 actually talked to me and only 1 went on dates she said she enjoyed before things trailed off, and we never kissed. Tinder really destroyed a lot of my self esteem and being a logical person I see matches as a quantification of my attractiveness. The only other way I know people meet girls is via frats which I can't join because of my other obligations.
I honestly wish that people would tell me what is wrong with me or what would make me more dateable. I've asked tons of people and they always claim I just need to be more social, but that has proved very difficult. I turned 21 right before covid and was planning on being more social by going to bars with friends and having a secondary objective of meeting girls. Now that seems rather unlikely.
This year I've suppressed a lot of my feelings about girls to the point I don't even really feel crushes towards anyone. I think like 90% of girls are attractive, interesting and I get along with new people well but there hasn't been anyone that I've really fallen for in a year. I feel like I'm basically preventing myself from getting hurt by not falling for anyone. Besides I don't even know what to look for in people since I've gone on so few dates. I'd be easy to look at myself and say I'm just being too picky, but when I would date basically anyone interested in me I don't think being picky is the problem. That's also not to say I come across as desperate, anyone I've been interested in dating I've been platonic friends with or was from tinder.
Lately it's gotten really bad. I've felt like I wasted college since covid will eliminate a lot of social gatherings. I feel like even if i got a girlfriend and she tells me I'm attractive a part of me wouldn't believe her or I would think something like "only 1 out of every 1000 people think I'm attractive".
TL;DR
Honestly if there are any college people out there that can describe what aspects of girls/guys they like or what makes you feel attracted to someone you don't know super well that would be very helpful.
If any of you kind internet strangers have advice for a post corona world specific to college dating life that would really help me.
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