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Pablo_Stafforini comments on Rational Romantic Relationships, Part 1: Relationship Styles and Attraction Basics - Less Wrong
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What ought one do when the problem is not solved by social skills?
I seem to have a tendency to feel extremely inadequate about any skill at which i am not noticeably better than everyone I know about. Due to this quirk of my psychology, I spent a significant portion of my life believing myself to have horrendous social skills. And, for a long time, I attributed my social and sexual failings to that perceived lack of social skill, despite a gradually growing mass of evidence in favor of my social skills being adequate.
(relatively) Recent evidence and experience has now finished falsifying the premise that my social skills are not viable.
Unfortunately, having (a lack of) social skills ruled out as a cause of the problem leaves me, seemingly, without any more low-hanging fruit to pursue. And when even the woman who literally wrote the sequence on self-awareness tells me that she doesn't know why her interest in dating me suddenly evaporated, I begin to... worry, and that feeling of helplessness starts showing up.
(And this doesn't even touch the non-trivial problem of meeting suitable mates, which is obviously a prerequisite to attracting anyone.)
Ask someone who knows you and has seen you interacting with women to give you honest feedback. Such feedback will help you spot the actual causes of your inability to attract suitable mates more than anything anyone could tell you here.
When I ask that, the answer is usually “I have no idea, you are not ugly nor unpleasant nor stupid after all” or “You just haven't found the right one yet.”
(Oh, and the people who give me the former answer are almost invariably already taken, or otherwise not looking for a relationship at the moment.)
When you approached these people, did you make it clear that you were looking for honest feedback, however painful it might be?
Well... I though I had, but now that I think about that... (OTOH, I usually ask that when we're both drunk, so that --I'd expect-- there are fewer filters in place than usual.)
I've also created an account on whatiswrongwithme.com and share it on Facebook once in a while -- promising I won't get offended no matter what I read, but I didn't get much feedback there either.
You may consider offering money in exchange for good feedback. A while ago, I agreed to pay a friend of mine $5 per individual piece of feedback that I judged to be sufficiently valuable. I learned a lot about myself as a result.
That had never occurred to me. Maybe I'll try that some day.
Actually, if you find the comment on this page (among the thousands) about useless studies (I recall it being highly upvoted), in a lot of people self-reporting is highly inaccurate. I suspect this is mostly either via automatic face-saving or via only reporting conscious reactions when unconscious ones are equally important.
I recommend either asking friends who both understand how the conscious/unconscious division works for them, and are willing to be brutally honest (actually if they have both these qualities they don't need to be a friend, just anyone willing to talk to you will do), or if no such person is available, form hypotheses yourself and get evidence by changing your behaviour and observing the responses, rather than asking outright.
There is no such person.
Then I think you might benefit from improving your social skills after all.
First, accumulate 117 acquaintances who would trust you to relay an unimportant piece of information accurately, and four true friends who would trust you to provide support in a situation which unexpectedly became violent.