I'm pretty surprised this thread is still on going concidering the first page.
I'm married, but I never stopped checking out dating and relationship advise (nothing in life is guaranteed) so I would like to share some wisdom I've learned.
I think a major key to finding a mate is being happy with just yourself. I think this supersedes anything else you could offer. If your happy with yourself, you won't feel the need to lead of with other stuff like money or material items. It helps with not coming off as desperate and will also make you more resilient to rejection. (You don't like me fine, I like me, and that's enough.)
Have standards and be able live up to them yourself.
Everyone has a target demographic, you just have to find what that is.
Put yourself out there. Pick up a yoga class, take a dance class, shit, even another collage class. If you want to catch a fish, you have to go where the fish swim.
Instead of dating apps, trying speed dating.
The thought was inspired by this video:
Warning nsfw toy ad in the video.
To paraphrase something she said in the video. The people she was visually attracted to when starting the speed dating session often aren't the people she was the most attracted to afterwards. I feel like that a major disadvantage of dating apps. All you really have is the visual, but it's a lot more to people then that. Plus, I feel like most people don't treat dating apps like a real thing and just be on there playing.
The best advise I heard from a pimp is the choose the girl that chooses you.
Chasing people imo is a waste of time. If someone looks at me and doesnt think "hell yeah" then it might as well be a no. But this could be more of my personality though.
Regardless, the first person you need to fall in love with is yourself. Then think about other people.