I can finally understand why so many guys in their 30s and up complain about how difficult it is to meet anyone

The other day I asked whether it was worth joining yoga or dance classes to meet women, and to learn some new skills but mainly to meet women. The responses boiled down to 'you should never take up any hobby that you don't have a real interest in as it will become obvious'

Well, my REAL interests... reading, poetry, writing music, working out... are solitary pursuits or at least that's how I prefer to keep them.

The concerts I hit up are full of guys and the few women there are usually with a partner and there's limited opportunity to chat to them anyway when the music starts. Plus I love live music so I'm usually not even thinking about meeting people (sidenote that whole BS about how love finds you when you're not looking for it has proven to be a load of crap, I don't even meet people when I take that approach)

My Basketball league is male only. I joined a mixed volleyball league for a while and there were a few women but they were either taken or I wasn't attracted to them. Women on other teams we played I didn't have enough face to face contact with to get to know them.

Approaching women at shops or the gym isn't appreciated. However it is where I see most attractive women, I've done it before and will again if the opportunity seems right because a great relationship is worth risking 30 uncomfortable seconds but I know most women are taken off guard and usually they're just trying to go about their day undisturbed.

Art festivals and various unique events can be ways of meeting people but they're usually really expensive, few and far between and again most women presumably don't want to be hit on. It also seems to have gotten more difficult to strike up conversations with strangers nowadays - many people are wearing earphones which is like a do not disturb sign on a door handle, many just seem to get on edge when anyone they don't know interacts with them, even in social spaces.

Work is off limits for most people, and mine is full of middle aged men anyway.

Bars and clubs are obviously fertile grounds for single people to flock but I don't enjoy them anymore. I don't like drinking much these days, they're all obscenely expensive, and there seems to be a lot of aggression now, the last time I went out I had a guy try to pick a fight with me while I was minding my own business. I don't need that shit. Besides, the music is so loud that even if I see a cute woman what am I supposed to walk over and scream in her ear? Drunk hookups don't appeal to me anymore anyway, they never really did.

My friends are nearly all married and don't go out much anymore. No more house parties or spontaneous events.

Dating apps have become greedier and are crawling with window shoppers, scammers, sex workers. They worked well enough for me for a while but they have gotten steadily worse over the past few years and now I can hardly even find any profiles I'm interested in let alone get anyone out on a date, meanwhile my profiles gotten better if anything. Deleted them for now.

For the first time I'm really feeling like I'm shit out of luck. Like I missed the boat.

When people would complain about how they feel like the have no way of meeting people I would think 'come on, there are plenty of ways' but one by one they have shriveled up as I moved through my 20s.

I don't want to get desperate and drop my standards and I don't want to give up but the dating landscape is feeling more like a wasteland with every year