Married over a decade here. I know the market is very toxic right now, but there are a lot of people who want a partner. I think there are also a lot of people who want a partner to validate and fill the hole in themselves but aren't very interested in being the hole-filler for someone else. Becoming someone able to be a hole-filler for someone else, wisely and in a non-codependent fashion, is about 70% of being able to get into and sustain a relationship.
I recommend avoiding the apps. I know that's how Gens Z and Alpha do it, but think about it this way: Apps are more successful if people don't get lifelong partners, only short term ones, so they come back to the app over and over again. All the people I know who have had successful marriages did dating the old fashioned IRL way. It's not impossible to date
Most of my useful find-a-date advice is for men trying to date women, so I'll hold off on that, other than your best bet is to find where single men of the general type you want to date are, and finding ways to get yourself there among them.
I will say that you need to be willing to both give and take - romance novels and virtual partners always give and never meaningfully take. Your man will not be perfect. He will have serious flaws, just as you do. When those flaws show themselves, love is a choice you make - to will the good of the other.
Speaking of old fashioned, I did wait until marriage and while it was not easy, it has proven to be the right choice, compared to my and my wife's peers who did not. Any man who loves you enough to be worth marrying will also be willing to sacrifice that aspect of himself for a time. It's easy for a man to say he'll take a bullet for you - he may even sincerely believe it - but the only way you can know that he will sacrifice for you is for him to do it in small ways every day, that being one important way.
Also, the marriage prep work we did was extremely valuable, it covered a lot of topics we hadn't thought of before.
Lastly, good research shows that men are much less appearance-focused than women think they are. I don't know what you look like IRL but don't sell yourself short due to your own insecurities. There is a large bevy of advertising and propaganda trying to convince men and women to spend a lot of time and money holding themselves to impossible standards that they think the other side holds. It's just that--propaganda. Do shallow idiots exist? Yes. But they are not anything like as common as the internet and the media make them seem.
