Every gal has different taste. You may have run into several who want a sexy need like that but some girls think other things are sexy. I know you won't believe it till you see it but its true.
Also, if you have self esteem problems like I do too, its always hard to believe somebody would want you or anything like you. I do talk myself up and all and mentally I know I'm average but emotionally when I look at me I think I'm sog ugly. I know I'm not but I can't see myself and react to myself any other way. I see me and I see the flaws and what I wish I was.
Objectively I can look at myself and say I look damn good for a 51 to grandma and that I got a smoking body for a lady who had four kids and never exercises bit that isn't how I feel. I think my husband is good looking and objectively I know he's in my league but emotionally I think why would he stay with me? I don't look like this or that.
Maybe you feel like that too? Maybe like me you ran across a lot at first who made you feel like you were nowhere near good enough? I was called ugly up until I was almost 20 and left my abusive ex husband. I was told the same as I'm telling you, that's just a bunch of assholes and they are wrong. I didn't believe it and I don't expect you to believe it either until you do find somebody who loves you. And it's hard to find the right fit and both fall in love no matter what you look like. Uberhot guys may get laid a lot and may have girls fall for them a lot but if they don't love the girl then all they are doing is settling
About settling. I used to do that. I felt so bad about myself that for a bit I'd fall all over myself all grateful for any redneck or felon who smiled at me. I felt he was settling and that I'd be happy just to have a guy like me. I was at first. Then I experienced the shitstorm of dissatisfaction I felt trying to hold on to some dude I didn't even like simply because I was so down on myself and desoerate that I'd take whatever I could get. Hence the ex husband who is now I'm prison for murder and during our short and tumultuous marriage he literally beat my ass every day, cheated on me with every girl friend ibhad and stole every valuable thing and penny I got my hands on. Then I finally realized i was bigger than him and all that getting my ass handed to me that had built up just exploded and I beat the living shit out of him. He was such a douchebag that his own mother hugged me for that.
But you can't give up looking or at least playing the field or trying cause if you do then you are guaranteed never to find her.
I know several girls who like guys who aren't beefcake or eye candy or even eye corn chips. Here are two examples. And both guys are nerds. Big ole nerds like you describe. And the girls are surprisingly pretty too.
My 19yo daughters friend who I'll call Carolina. Pretty girl with long auburn hair and a killer rack. (Both these girls have good boobs) very smart girl too. Her bf is two years older and very tall, very skinny, so pale he could glow in the dark, wears aviator frame glasses like the 70s, has unstyled hair that is neither long or short and always wears a hat. He's also very socially awkward and hesitant and is very quiet. He likes Dr Who, D&D, and taking apart video games and such. And putting them back together. He has no money or job and lives with his dad until he can get back to college next semester cause he was late with his FASFA and his car is old and breaks down a lot and dirty. He has NOTHING that if you went by what you think girls want you would say he needed. Yet he's got the pretty gf and they have been together a while.
They stayed here for a couple months when he and his dad had a falling out. Very motherly and all my kids friends talk to me just to hang out sometimes and I'm the go to mom for problems or just to talk and be sad. He talked to me one night when everybody else wasbin bed and I had insomnia. It started about him missing his mom. She died not long ago. Then he just talked and I listened. The subject of Carolina came up and he said she's his first gf and he is shocked he got her. He was bullied and picked on for how he acted and his looks and we commiserated about that and I told him my stories. He said that somebody had told him to try the hipster look. They are skinny and pale and ubcool on purpose. The only requirement is to like obscure music but not obscure music your friends or anyone else likes and its gotta be some subset of rock but not electronic or pop or house or anything you could dance to. Also you should be kind of weird. Have strange almost obsessive hobbies. Be quirky and eccentric or quiet or even arrogant but be as far from frat boys, jocks, don Juan's and any other normal hero type in a teen movie that you can. He said he kind of already did that and his friend took him to the junk store and bought him old t-shirts and tennis shoes and courderoy pants. Then took him to the music store to show him the bargain bins where the hipster music was and told him to just grab a few and listen to it all the time till he could tolerate it. It worked. She was not a hipster when they met but she went apeshit over his hipster look and how quiet he was and his hobbies. They dated then fell on love. I bet you could pull this off. If you're heavy you can too. Don't try to hide your gut but always wear a button up shirt, open over your tshirt. Grow inkept facial here too.
The other couple met in senior year. She's cute and smart and popular but not cheerleader popular. Cutesy girl popular. Why my black souled daughter is friends with her I don't know. She usually hates them. My younger daughter is a lot like me except with a serial killer rack, a j lo booty, pretty, Gothic, meaner and scarier. Also moody as fuck. If she didn't justbgo all squeaky voiced and furry critter love about every nonhuman living thing except spiders I wouldn't be surprised to find dead neighborhood animals hanging in a mobile from her ceiling. She'd kill a person before she would inconvenience and animal so that won't happen. She's not crazy or anything. She just has that vibe. They did funny "most likely to" for her senior yearbook. She was voted most likely to participate in human sacrifice. She will also kick a boys ass if he puts his hands on her too forwardly. Yeah. She's that girl. The only way you'd imagine her in the same room with cutesy is if cutesy was her human sacrifice victtim. Buy they loooove each other. It was weird. I hate that chick. Anyway her bf is a year older. He talks but he says inappropriate things. Not in a rude or dirty or mean or crazy way. In a way me or you would if we were shot up with pentethol and dropped into a debutante cotillian. He's short. He's pretty overweight. He looks like a less attractive Eddie Izzard. He has no money either. He delivers pizza. In (oh God get this) his my little pony themed economy compact car. He's a Bronie. He is so much one that he turned his car into the dream car of every 11 yo girl in America. And he got miss popular pastel wearing velvet hedband cutsey.
So there is just no telling. And before you say it there are no drugs or booze involved. I'd know. I'm the cool mom. I don't mind up to certain points probably very far past where biker parents would be OK with. But that's kinda why my kids aren't into drugs. Weed is the extent and only occasional drinking. They are adults now too.
And you can't make anybody tell you what they want. Or talk about their feelings. Some people just won't. Lots of times girls won't talk to you about that because they don't know you well enough. It's weird that a girl might blow you and talk to you about her period and her mother and her friends problems and all and everything else but its too personal to tell you what we want from you. Not all are that way but I totally get it. And some won't at all. My alpha male NT construction worker football but, ex football player husband is like that. He's chatty and charming and people love him and other guys usually do what he says but he won't come off anything about his feelings to save his life. I have to drag that shit out of him with a pickaxe word by word. My youngest son is the same way. Well he shows his negative feelings big time and is mind of a drama queen about shit. Hes the one I started suspecting has mild AS a few years back but he's not interested in finding out.
My husband won't even show his feelings about some things. Stuff that might make him think he looks needy or weak. But he will let it build up then fuck up royally. I've learned to watch and notice things about him. Things you can only sense. It's like I'm a service dog sending a seizure or something. Then I have to talk to him just the right way to find things out. When his dad died he cried a minute at the grave site and a few months later had a little nervous breakdown. When his mother did in sept he didn't cry at all. Then again I didn't cry when mine did. I loved her but she was a royal bitch and while I wished she was alive and healthy and maybe in Florida I was kind of relieved that her borderline personality disorder shit the always aimed straight at me was stopping. I also knew my husband's mother very well so I totally get the not crying for her. I made myself act subdued and quiet like when I worked at the funeral home but with his mother I had midgets dancing down the yellow brick road singing "Ding Dong The Wicked Witch Is Dead".
What all have you tried? And an obvious question here is if you think girls just want a guy who lifts, why not start lifting?