You clearly have an atvantage.
I'm pretty sure that if I had had any advantage I would have known.
It's something else holding you back if you're unsuccessful.
I know. That's like me saying to an obese woman "it's something else holding you back if you're unsuccessful" but I wouldn't do that because I'm honest enough to say that obesity is unattractive to a lot of men.
If I were average I would get at least some matches on Tinder, even if Tinder is harsher than RL if I were average I should at least get a match every two weeks or something. Also if I were average I'm pretty sure I would have made a lot of different experiences in life.
Like I said: The way I look was/is considered as unattractive by the majority of women my age. Not really sure about cougars but at least I can tell that the women my age have absolutely no attraction towards me.
Right now, yes, something else is holding me back from even just trying anymore since about 1.5 years now. I've developed a chronic pain disorder and my sleep isn't really restaurative anymore which means... well guess what happens when you can never get a good night sleep. Bad memory, confusion, hard to concentrate, feeling tired all the time, having that itch in your brain that makes you want to open your skull and throw it out and the chronic pain in addition to that. I already had pretty much zero chance to find a girlfriend and now it got even worse. I don't want to sound insulting to women... but I doubt women would want to date a guy with these health problems and I don't blame them for not wanting to, it makes sense to not want to and I have no right to expect them to want to. I know this sounds like I have given up because yes, that's exactly the case. I don't have the strength right now to try. Both physically and mentally. If you've been considered unattractive all your life long (and I don't mean by myself, I mean by other), barely gotten any results with the opposite gender you end up being a virgin at age 23, 24 at which point being a virgin starts becoming a dealbreaker on its own and just makes stuff even harder. Then you become physically ill and that just killed the last bit of hope to be honest. I could never pull through to have sex with a paid sex worker because it just feels odd. But yes, you can call that my mistake. I probably should have just had sex with a paid sex worker at age 22, 23 a couple of times to increase my worth on the dating market. Now three years later and ill... you're just completely fucked. It's not just impossible to have a girlfriend, it's impossible to just have friends. Friends don't adapt to your illness, they will live their own lifes so if you can't go out two or three times because you're just too ill they will stop asking you to come with them. Those friends are gone. The friends you used to do sports with. If you're too ill to do sports anymore (luckily I can still climb because it doesn't put as much cardiovascular stress as the other stuff I used to do) they'll leave you. You can't do sports... you're useless to them. Over time I've lost all my friends. The reality is... you can't expect people to stay with an ill person. People don't do that. Like I said: Reality is much harsher than you think. Ideally friends stay and stuff but friends also want something from the friendship (such as playing sports together) but if you can't provide anything in return for their friendship (such as not being able to play sports anymore) they will just stop being your friends.
This is stuff you never see or learn until it happens to you. Nobody would think that little things can have such a huge impact - like being balding at a young age or being short. It does. I was very athletic, I climbed, I did parkour, I did martial arts I was member of a local sports club, I can play several music instruments, decent education. On paper this sounds like "why can't you get a girlfriend" but you're neglecting how much of a dealbreaker little things can be and how it accumulates. If you can't find a girlfriend at young ages (like pre 22ish) and don't want to sleep with a hooker these little things will lead to another thing: lack of sexual experience which just becomes yet another disadvantage. You'd think friends stay and be supportive, afterall, they are your friends. Nobody would think that they'll all gonna leave you if you become ill. The truth is: They will leave you.
I do have managed to find a potential girlfriend once (so I thought) but she commited suicide and wasn't really in a good state and she told me she didn't love me in an SMS later on so I'm not counting that as "was attracted to me". Anyway, no sex happened so still a virgin. For the rare few matches I got from tinder my virginity was the dealbreaker for those women.