Sure, people that can completely ignore physical appearance exist; it’s a bit of a straw man to say any claim is about 100.00% of people. The point is that appearance matters to a majority of people - and that it’s often the first attractor that even leads to any further discovery. Romantic comedies tend to put “opposites” into quirky unexpected circumstances that lead to that discovery, but that won’t happen for a lot of people.

But as to your second and third paragraphs, you are completely correct - and it may have been a missed expectation thinking I was arguing against that. People should be happy on their own. It might just be me thinking that the meme is originally pointed towards people expressing that relationships are something everyone should seek, because it has nothing to do with attractiveness - and that is what I consider untrue. But yes, people can still choose to be “ugly” (by mild comparison) and happy. Nothing totally excuses toxic behavior from people’s rejection.

There are two good arguments here.

1. Biologically attractive people will be generally more successful at having casual sexual encounters. Whether or not this tracks to actually finding love or just finding sex is unsure. Furthermore, whether it has to do with "unattractive" people being less confident/more self-conscious is yet to be shown.

2. If you take care of yourself and actually go out and interact with women (and people in general), forcing yourself into uncomfortable social situations, eventually you'll get better at talking to people and talking to people is like 80% of dating.

depressed people cherry pick negative evidence to support their worldview that they are worthless

These people need help. It's not my problem or responsibility. It's THEIR responsibility.

Like many, I have not seen any success, or really attention (to share my social skills) in dating apps. That step is wholly decided by physical attractiveness.

I’d be happy to throw away any attempt at using those sites, but unfortunately much of the dating world has moved to them; and the people in relationships I do know generally used them.

What we know of those sites suggests the only men receiving attention on them are in the top 10% in terms of appearance. I’ve also anecdotally heard from women who admit to using the environment more for attention seeking behavior than actual relationships. I certainly wouldn’t call myself “ugly” for being in the bottom 90 percentile. I am okay with my appearance - I just know I’m not a perfect Adonis. I’m even okay with that behavior from the opposite gender - you can’t help what you like. Even if one of my friends was a granite-chinned gigachad, I wouldn’t fault him for just refusing to work through such a toxic environment - even if he has trouble finding such relationships elsewhere.

This is a complex situation not faulted to any one gender. The net effect, though, is that it’s not a good idea for anyone to date unless you’re blinded towards the survivorship bias you see from those that make it through, or are unconventionally attractive.