Edit: that's it. I'm writing a dating guide soon. I'm seeing this too often on HN.

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> I am equally unlikely to ever find a partner who would want children with me.

I've had this issue for 6 years (between 16 to 22). I was heavily involved with the pickup artist community at the time. I wouldn't call myself a pickup artist, since what I do isn't picking up women and it isn't an art. I just used whatever good advice they had lying around and used it. After 6 years, here are the cliff notes (I studied psychology as well, so you can bet this has some science behind it).

- The most important advice: only take advice you understand or are curious about and test whether it works for you. If it doesn't, that's completely fine. Advice in getting relationships does not have a one size fits all solution. Maybe this will be the case in the future, but for now, no one figured it out yet.

- Learn cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Read David Burns Intimate Connections and Feeling Good.

- Learn Mindfulness Meditation and other forms. Read Search Inside Yourself by Chade Meng-Tan.

- Finding a therapist is always a good idea. They can second those books and they can second CBT.

- Strength + cardiovascular exercise helps (strength for body posture, running for mental sharpness). The best way to get into this IMO is to simply lift a weight a couple of times until your heart starts beating a bit faster. Then when it is beating faster, notice how you're feeling slightly more in ecstacy than before (other than some slight muscle fatigue).

- Fix your fashion. A good fashion doesn't win women over. It is appreciated though. A bad fashion does let them run away. If you don't want them to run away, stay safe, have a good fashion.

- Read up on assorted mating theory and try to find women that are compatible with you personality-wise, and ask yourself where they'd hangout or how you'd recognize them. I was into artsy types, so anyone who looked like an artist, I'd introduce myself to. I have a high openess to experience, artsy people tend to as well. Do a big 5 personality test (no mbti/myer's briggs nonsense).

- Be careful with pickup artist advice. It's toxic and sexist as hell. The sexism is bullshit.

- This stuff is hard work. I have a friend who has slightly better looks than me (I'm not a pretty person, I'm average at best), but he has no initiative. His dates / relationships are far and few in between. I do think he's enjoying life though.

Those are my biggest tips, most are also quite science-backed.

Some personal findings:

- Getting a girlfriend won't fix your life. You need to take care of your own problems. The only thing it does, it enriches your life.

- You need to come from a place where you feel like you don't need a girlfriend, but it would simply be nice or fun or adventurous (or whatever positive emotion you can think about). The best way to do that is to cater to every single need that you have as much as possible without needing someone else to help you with it.

- You need to make your intentions clear as soon as you know them. I sometimes do it when I see a woman. I do steer clear from cliche's. If I think she's hot as hell, I try to mention that in its most eloquent form (e.g. I'd say she has a nice fashion sense, amazing energy and cute -- I would then go into specific detail). This makes things a lot less complicated. Be respectful about it. I always asked for permission to kiss women, verbally. This goes straight against pickup artist literature, but I found that it worked enough of the time and at least I had a good feeling about it to get verbal consent.

- It is a numbers game. You need volume, but if after a 1000 approaches you haven't even felt a real connection and kissed someone, you're doing something wrong and you need a coach. The problem: most coaches suck. The only one that I know is good is called Ratisse (personal experience but I was already nearly complete in what I needed to learn).

- You can be yourself. Except, you must also be: positive, optimistic and playful. Other than that, you can be yourself.

- You'll have more success approaching women by yourself than with friends. Reason: you're less threatening by yourself, and convey more open body language. The hyper charged version of this is traveling alone (warning: it can be tough at times, just meet people at hostels. If you don't know what to say then just introduce yourself to a group of people at hostels with "hi my name is <name> what are you guys doing in <place/country>?" And have a story ready as to why you think the country/place is genuinely amazing, don't fake the story, just tell a story from the heart. This does the trick often enough.).

- Try to come up with a method of dating women by focusing on your strenghts. Do this as fast as possible. My weakness: lack of humor. My strength: a shit ton of fantasy. My solution: approach women with fantastical stories that I'm making up out of thin air.

- It's the inside that counts, not the outside. The outside is fun, so are drugs or video games. But a good personality means guaranteed amazing sex no matter how she looks, so IMO looks are irrelevant even from a hedonic perspective. I've been with good looking women, but the best sex I've ever had wasn't from a good looking woman. The most amazing intimate moments didn't have any correlation with looks either (sometimes they were good looking). The only thing I had was that I became less insecure after having slept with a few good looking women (and ultimately realizing it was all nonsense).