In a highly materialistic leftist society, the way I see it is that woman, more so the top 20-25% or so attractive, are only typically impressed with a man who is in the top 1% or so of some category that interests them. It's one reason why the red-pill views of all women are jumping on chads and falling off is wrong. That's a minority of women.
Some women are really interested in intelligence, "confidence"/game, finances, charisma, social status etc. They seem to generally have a minimum common standard of looks, which should not be too difficult for men who work out ~7+ hours a week, dress presentably and keep themselves groomed. But then all these traits they have a minimum standard for stack up, e.g. they don't want someone who has the energy of living with mama, the above and others.
I've seen some women repulsed by better looking men whose charisma is off putting to them, women swoon for shabby intellectuals, and fairly good looking girls disinterested with 1% guys. Many women are shy and conservative. They might find a guy attractive, but an arrogant manner that suggests she should be into him physically from the off - off putting. I am the same, some times in my life women who I found physically attractive have came on strong to me, but I find flirting and anything beyond it disgusting. What kind of a woman sexualises a conversation from the off.
The man in the modern leftist society must meet as many women as possible, in the hopes that one will find something about him impressive enough to spark a relationship. But then there is no guarantee that woman will be anywhere near marriageable or interested in marriage.
Data shows only about 1/3 of males 18-24/5 in the US are in a relationship. A lot of that is guys who are near the 1% of something a woman thinks is impressive. As the years pan out more women accept lower and lower levels of impressive. We're probably about the stage when around 50% of men aged 30 have never been in a relationship.
Very different when you take the leftist out of a materialist society. Russia is far more materialist than America, at least in a sense of material gain*, but men are not weighed down by leftism and women are not held up. Men are almost universally expected to be competitive and perform. Feminism is near universally considered an embarrassment. Just the very nature of the men this society produces (more masculine) mean women are more interested in men, and they need them more for everything financial and social.
* Material complaint (leftism) is more materialist in essence IMO, but not as most people would consider, as the leftist mind is far more pre-occupied with social/material stakes than your average person who likes fine things
It's funny how different the standards are with men and women women. Men have low standards, women have high standards. Which is logical since they take the risk of pregnancy, and the subsequent survival that comes with it. So men will easily look down, while women can only look up, or at least look at the same level of them to consider a long term relationship.
For a man, if a woman is feminine, nice, caring, not a headache, and somewhat attractive, that's mooooooooore than enough. For a woman however there's the laundry list of 240 things he has to have. And as you say, they can have a certain thing they find interesting in particular, but the overall equation simply comes down to survival value: just everything that would help her and her children survive, whether that's resources (meat and wood in the past, money now), physical strength or leanness and athleticism (to fight and/or hunt), social status (probably the most important of all, for a man who can come up with an army of 100 guys and has other guys who follow him and go to battle with him and help him solve his problems are 100 times stronger than an opponent who arrives at the battlefield by himself), social proof (other women find him interesting), personality (masculine, general, leader above all, boundaries, setting her straight like a parent sets his children straight).
What I do think that happens, and this is underlines by data of dating apps, is that women nowadays with all their standards and their hubris on steroids punch way above their heightclass in their expectations. So a woman always looks up, so let's say overall she's a 5 she'd always look for a 6 or a 7 (women/men get judged differently on the scale in what they have to provide, but let's use these numbers for ease of exemplification), but now a 5 will not be satisfied with a 6 or a 7, and will look to an 8 or a 9. Cause she deserves it. She's a queen. She has a career, and makes her own money, she's independent, didn't you know? And she's got 10 DMS a day and a couple dozens of likes and replies by men, so that it seems to her her options are endless, albeit these men are often interested in short term encounters only, or those who want the relationship may be not the men she actually wants to be with (the more simpish types).
So what we see in the dating app data is that for women choosing a man yes/no is a very binary equation: it's literally that, yes or no. 80% or men are deemed undesirable, and 95% are swiped to the left. It's like a hockystick curve, where it's no for a long time, and then at the end at the higher echelons the stick goes up precipitously. For men however, the equation is way more spread out, it's more like a 4 on the scale is also good, and well a 3 also if it's what it is, and a 6 will be pretty good already etc. Men will swipe basically almost everything to the right, unless there's truly something off.
So that's what leads to the disconnect, and also the dissatisfaction and disappointment of these women who in their 30s find out that the Disney fairytale of mr Perfect to come in at 33 isn't going to play out and that her serious options for a serious, long term commited relationship with a man she wants that with are waaaay more limited than she initially anticipated upon. And for men, well they're just bumping their head against the wall again and again and getting very disillusionised, disappointed and sometimes bitter about it, which overall leads to a very poisoned sexual marketplace where both parties lose.
