dating--archaic practice or have we just become apathetic and/or too picky?

i'm sitting here so frustrated that i could just wad up my fist and sock someone (and by someone i mean one of these really great and viable bachelors who just lacks the gumption/balls to ask a girl out) right in the schnoz and leave blood dripping out their nostril. despite the fact that the previous sentence completely contradicts what i'm about to say, it's true...i'm actually quite a great person. i'm funny, smart, attractive, confident; i'm a good conversationalist, i'm motivated and driven. all in all, i'm a good catch. and yet here i stay, year after year, single...and single again...and single some more. and it's not for lack of trying either. i put myself out there. i've dated almost the entire gambit of men out there trying to find the one that fits, and every time i'm left alone with an imprint of the stitching that this wrong-sized relationship has left on my skin. i've dated the bad boys, the good guy, the smart one, the funny guy, the shmoozer, the loner...you name it, i've dated it. and not only that, i've tried various dating styles....being very available, being busy, long distance, aggressive, sitting on the back burner, and then of course, what i always am, just being myself. and none of it works. so i decided to take a dating hiatus to try and better myself so that maybe next time things will develop into something real rather than in a frustrating and maddening ending. the last multiple guys i had dated had pursued me persistently and so i decided to take a break from that and now that i'm ready to get back in the saddle again, i'm trying out the technique of me being the one that goes after them. and here's the rub: it doesn't work either. none of it works. today i asked out this guy who i really, really like (and it's not the first time) and was, yet again, shot down. and i'm fairly certain that he likes me...or is at least intrigued by me...and yet he never accepts my invites to go out. and so when i back off to let him take the lead, he doesn't do that either. apparently he's amazingly socially anxious and is somewhat lacking in confidence but what i don't get is that i've taken the hard part out of the equation for him by me doing the asking and initiating and it still is to no avail. what in hell's bells? really? i am just left dumbfounded. i can't figure this guy out. and the worst part is, i can't seem to shake him. i think about him constantly, i get butterflies every time i see him, every time i'm out with another couple or am in one of those romantic, pensive states, i always think about how great it would feel to have his hand in mine and how our hands would fit perfectly together. i can feel this part of myself on a different, almost subconscious level that is attracted and linked to that same part of him, but no matter what i do, i can't seem to make anything happen. i guess i just get to try and learn that damn lesson of patience....which is just a big crock of bull. but nothing else i can do at this point. i think he's worth the fight....ironic that this time the fight is me waiting in an emotional atrium before being called back behind the sparkly doors of relationship manor. ugh....