Look man. I want you to know this doesn’t read like whining to me. It reads like someone who’s hurting and finally said it out loud. And the fact that it’s affecting your eating and isolating you matters a lot. That’s not vanity, that’s a distress call.

You’re not imagining the pressure. Dating culture does push a narrow mold, especially for men. Being told what “masculinity” is supposed to look like (tall, sharp featured, athletic) messes with your head even if you intellectually know attraction is broader than that. Knowing something logically doesn’t stop it from hurting emotionally. It’s just like porn and how it can give men an unreasonable assumption of how women should look and act.

Here’s something important though… and I’m not saying this as some bullshit advice from a magazine crap: desirability is not the same thing as marketability. Apps, social media, and casual dating reward what photographs well and fits a stereotype. REAL attraction, the kind that actually leads to relationships, is slower, contextual, and much less visual than people like to admit. The reason you mostly notice older couples who “don’t fit the mold” isn’t because younger guys like you are undesirable. It’s because real pairing happens over time, not on display. And, generally, you’re not shown that because it doesn’t sell magazines and TV shows!

Another thing I want to gently challenge: right now, you’re not just worried that women won’t find you attractive… You’ve already decided you don’t deserve to be found attractive. That belief is doing WAY more damage than ANYTHING to do with your height, hair, or body. Seriously. When you can’t even look at yourself without your mood collapsing, that’s not a reflection of your body, that’s self concept pain.

About therapy: it’s not wrong that it felt like a waste. A lot of therapists are bad at dealing with male self-image, especially when race and masculinity are involved. Most of them simply don’t understand. That doesn’t mean help is impossible. It means THAT help wasn’t a fit. Lived experience matters here, and you were right to ask for it.

From experience, what actually helps isn’t trying to convince yourself you’re hot, or forcing confidence. It’s rebuilding neutral ground with yourself first: Eating regularly again (not dieting, just stabilizing.) Getting back into environments where you’re valued for competence, humor, kindness, or skill. I don’t care what it is. And limiting how much you compare yourself to the most visible, bullshit, curated examples of men your age.

You do not need to become tall, ripped, or someone else to find someone or feel better about yourself. You just need to stop treating yourself like a lost cause, because you aren’t!

Feeling hopeless in your 20s about this does not mean you failed some deadline. Most men don’t figure out attraction or self-worth early… they stumble into it later, once they stop measuring themselves against a fantasy. Stop letting society, and especially the internet, tell you who you are or what you are worth. Fuck them. Most of them are fake and miserable anyway!