People don’t want to date for dating’s sake, so why even bother?

A bit of a rant and looking for some suggestions/positivity!

I have been on and off on online dating for the last two years since my last relationship ended. I'm slow to open up to people in general. And I've gotten a lot of questions from a guy after first or second date if I'm interested in them. I would say yes but probably not as ENTHUSIASTICALLY as they're expecting or would like…and then it kinda fizzles out after that…I get that in an ideal world, you'd want to find someone just as excited about you as you are about them. But to be honest, with a lot of these guys I've definitely been very interested in several from the start. But I want to give time to get to know them more, get more comfortable around them. I don't think that's necessarily wrong? It just seems that in the last few years people's expectations with dating has turned into…if you don't show interest IMMEDIATELY, then it's onto the next one…but isn't the point of dating to DATE, spend time getting to know each other, then after a bit of time see if you are compatible in the long run?

I just feel that I'm in a dating rut now (esp. since quarantine happened). I really don't know how to show the IMMEDIATE INTEREST (I don't mean sex immediately and I don't think these guys are expecting this right off the bat either) that a lot of men are looking for in order to ensure that I'm worth investing time and energy into…if a lot of guys aren't willing to date for dating's sake…I'm really not sure how to do this anymore…(note: I'm not playing any mind games, I respond fairly quickly when I see messages, and I'm generally very respectful of other people's time etc. If there's someone that I really don't see chemistry/compatibility with, I let them know pretty directly that it's not going anywhere).