Just talking from my own experience, I got friend-zoned a lot when I was younger. I definitely was never a pushover, and I was self-pitying, but ACTUALLY Self-pitying. Like, to myself. I never blamed anyone else. I always knew that it was my own fault, or just something totally out of my control if a girl didn't like me.

Or, if it wasn't out of my control, it wasn't reasonably within my control, IE I would need to do things that weren't ME or things I didn't want to do to earn that, and I didn't want to.

I was always willing to adapt myself, make small fundamental changes to my paradigm, for an SO, but I've never been willing to completely undermine who I was.

And in highschool, I got bullied, but passively. Nobody ever physically confronted me, aside from one time, and that dude was a psycho, and he caught me offguard and got me into a headlock while I was sitting. Not much you can do about that.

But generally, in highschool I was about 6' and about 170-180, and I wasn't someone who was physically intimidated easily, so generally harassment was psychological, and mostly because I generally kept to myself.

That left plenty of scars, though, and I absolutely went through periods where I was self-pitying.

So I think it's possible to be in more than one place on this spectrum, and also you need to understand that even if you are a confident, nice, gentleman, there will still be some girls who won't be into you that way. There's a whole confluence of factors that control attraction, even for really attractive people.

Self-awareness and reasonable expectations and a strong self of self are important, because win or lose when it comes to romance, at least it leaves you a well-adjusted, self-actualized person, so once you muddle your way through the emotional quagmire of youth, you'll find it much easier to find someone.