One thing that scares me off from dating...

[S_Spartan]

Dating is cruel for people with social phobia. I never got past a first date, I feel more hurt now than I did when I never had a date. It's because now I feel more rejected for even trying.
Yes, and expectations are terrible to deal with. Both people at the table are judging and planning their next steps based on stupid dating rules that shouldn't be there in the first place.

Yep. Dating these days is like a murky soup of liberation (people sleeping together on the first date), ancient rules still in place, and people stressing over whether to send the text or not because they want to keep that mystery about them and act disinterested.
You can do everything "right" and if they aren't feeling "it" off they can disappear without so much as an explanation. And this is supposed to be fun?
Like someone said recently: These days everyone is running game but they are all tired of the games.