OriginalZen

Girls can be good for relationship advice but on this question they don't seem to really understand what they actually want. "Be nice to her, ask her about herself, don't get mad if she doesn't respond right away". These are directions on how to get friendzoned, not how to get a gf. Ask yourself. If I was the girl of my dreams, could I really be blamed for not noticing right away what a great guy I am? Yes you need to be able to have enjoyable conversations with girls. But girls don't respect a guy who puts them on a pedestal. Most of them have self-confidence issues and so they want lots of "followers" who they can look down on, but will go far out of their way to chase the confident asshole who doesn't give them what they want. To be clear, I'm not saying to be an asshole to women. It does sort of work, but it feels wrong to me, and I wish the women who get caught up in that delusion would just die off. What I'm saying goes back to the "imagine if you were your dream girl" part. What you need to do is go on amazon and buy some makeup and girls clothes... Just kidding. It takes 6 months of diligence at the gym to see noticeable results. It takes intelligence to wade through health and nutrition info and pick the truth from the lies. These things will improve your appearance, mental health, and confidence, and give you the stability-of-self to where you don't need to be an asshole for her to know you could walk away at any moment. We guys have it comparatively easy. Being unattractive is something we can change. Girls don't have that option, so you can sort of understand why they'd have self confidence issues.

Loving yourself, being critical of yourself... It depends on where you are in your personal journey and the answer won't make any sense to you unless it comes from within. The kind of critical thinking and problem solving ability it takes to raise yourself above the things that make you sad can take a lifetime to develop, and then you die. My advice is to get creative.