Thanks to everyone who answered/commented! Here’s a takeaway from the discussion so far, where I feel I’m less confused about something that confused me before.
There is a vague cluster that can be described as “straight men who are socially awkward STEM nerds”. Let’s call it “the Cluster” for now. Online, you often encounter men from the Cluster bemoaning their lack of romantic success. That made me think that the Cluster is a great “market” for women who find this type of men attractive (i.e. it should be easy to compete there). However, in my personal experience it is not really so.
Here’s my new model of what’s happening. Men care about looks of potential lovers much more than women. Women care about status of potential lovers much more than men. Adolescents and sometimes young adults in the Cluster are low status (due to poor social skills and unusual interests) and therefore have low “romantic market value” (RMV). They are the main source of the complaints one hears. However, adults in the Cluster have great careers in STEM and are therefore high status and have high RMV. On the other hand, a woman doesn’t gain nearly as much RMV from having a great STEM career, and is therefore uncompetitive in that market unless she is also exceptionally good-looking (which I am not).
I guess my tentative actionable conclusion is that I need to aim for men who are either older, or bad-looking or doing poorly in their career despite still being intellectuals. Some kind of penniless artist types, maybe? Not sure where to find those...
I would appreciate it if downvoters explain why they downvote. My current best guess is, some people think romantic relationships is not an appropriate topic for LW, although I’m not sure exactly why. Too normie? Too low-brow? Not intellectual-coded? Anyway, I’m sincerely curious so thx to anyone who explains.