I disagree with you here. It's worse than that.

Male identity is a negative identity because it's based on dominance. Men define themselves based on what they are not. A man is NOT weak, a man is NOT soft, etc.

They enter the dating field ALREADY believing they are inherently bad, unworthy, and undeserving of love.

You can readily see this by the epic meltdowns that tend to follow the slightest criticism and how readily so many men easily conflate problem or issue within the dynamic of men as being ALL men whether you were anywhere near that or not.

Falling for Influencers fraud just kicks what's already there into a negative feedback loop or a negstive spiral of obsessively thinking about being a failure.

Suddenly everything under the sun is *proof* of your unworthiness, most especially anything that can even be remotely attached to a woman, even tangentally and totally random.

You and your friend are walking down the street and a woman is walking your direction. She steps in a sidewalk crack and wobbles in her heels, tripping toward your friend instead of you. Your friend got that chance to steady (touch) her because the universe knows how unworthy you are.

You're a mechanic and a woman brings her car in for service. You and a coworker service her car. She thanks you both as she's paying the bill, but your coworker gets the last smile. In your mind, this is the one that counts because it's the one that "lingers" and you didn't get it because you're not good enough.

Some of these guys have some real next level mental gymnastics self validating why they suck. It's eerily similar to some of the thinking or anorexics and as equally divorced from reality.