If only the guys who had the fundamentals right (actual brains, competence, kindness, etc.) were better at operating the female hindbrain! Adding social skills to the male population is good for women.

So, is it your experience that men with the fundamentals right are often lacking at interacting with the female hindbrain? That is consistent with my observations, and I'd be interested to hear you expand on that perception.

Vladimir_M and I ended up concurring in the past that there is excessive polarization between men who appeal to women's hindbrains, and men who have good qualities in other areas (e.g. relating to long-term mate potential). We suggested that the relationship between masculinity/excitement and female attraction is a step function: there's a certain baseline level of those traits required, but adding more of those traits isn't always better.

In your case, your threshold sounds like:

too many indications of "softness" in personality, excessive self-deprecation

Those guys are below your threshold for some dimension (which may be related to masculinity). I would hazard a guess that for you, once it's obvious that a guy isn't too soft, being less soft isn't always better, and that you don't like men who are too far on the other end of that dimension (whatever it is), either.

Unfortunately, large minorities of the male population fail these sorts of thresholds and are consequently undateable, even for women who aren't into hypermasculine men and are into nerdy and intelligent men. This is a bad thing for everyone (except the guys who currently have monopolies on women's hindbrains) , and the sad thing is how easily fixable it is.

With just a minor behavioral makeover, such a guy would stop falling foul of women's screens like yours (except perhaps the job one, which would take more time). Neither fanboyism, softness, or self-deprecation are core parts of anyone's personality. It's possible to fix all those things without being dishonest (unless holding in neurotic self-deprecation is "dishonest"), or changing the guy's values very much (unless "don't change yourself for anyone" or some other silly value like that has been internalized).

Sadly, women who want any excitement and masculinity in men are often forced to go for guys who are "overkill" in those categories. When women say stuff like "I want a badboy with a tender heart," or "I like nice guys, but not weak men," they aren't contradicting themselves: they are looking a complex combination of traits, which is consistent with women's greater behavioral selectivity.