If you are feeling good about your looks now,
I'm not. It took me almost 4 years to have a normal BMI, yet I'm still super skinny, my face is still horrible, and I'm not even that good at weight lifting (bench-pressing 60kg is terrible).
You have to talk to actual people.
Who? And say what?
This "advice" is always repeated by people like you, yet they can't answer the most basic question about it.
you can also tell any friends you have that you are looking to start dating, network.
They know, but what can they do about it?
dating apps
I used several apps for 2 years and got nothing. Maybe a match every six months. Those apps are scams anyway; I know for a fact Tinder shadowbans accounts of people they deem too ugly. I did an experiment with a friend once; we both set our search perimeter to less than a kilometer. I could see her account, but she couldn't see mine.
you still have to reach out to people
Again: who? Say what? I asked that question to several people over the years, both IRL and on Reddit/Lemmy, and NEVER got an answer.
I did not randomly send you a DM. We were both on the same thread (so a conversation subject was already decided), and the very structure of Lemmy makes it acceptable to reply to random people in various threads, with the added benefit of it being in written form. Real life is very different; I can't just listen to conversations people I don't know are having, and randomly interject when I feel I have something relevant to say.
I understand what that is, but it cannot work. I know one tried at least twice to hook me up with someone. They do not have the power to fix me. No one does.