There is definitely an emotional toll that comes with approaching so many women, for me at least. That's why I can only do so much of it. They have done nothing to earn my attention, yet I am forced to initiate because that's just the way things are.
I try to balance the frustration of not getting girls with the frustration of getting "rejected." Once one of them gets to be too much, then I go in the other direction (towards living a more peaceful solitary life or initiating more). I am doing better with the rejection part, which some of the insights on here have helped me with. Basically, I am not going to be the right match for a lot of people. "And that's... ok."
I would probably do much better if I did tons of cold approaches in shopping malls or bars, but that's just not what I want to be. I know people will say it's because I'm scared to approach girls, but I have done that in school when the situation seemed natural. I just think it's kind of undignified to go around trying to get something from girls that you don't know. Socrates would not have done that. And neither would anyone have thought Socrates was a loser because he didn't get laid. He probably just had a wife and that was that.
I don't look down on others who do mass cold approaches, but it doesn't jive with my self-concept and I would have a hard time respecting myself if I put so much energy into chasing women. Online dating is far from ideal, but at least it has the advantage that it's convenient and I don't really take it seriously.
Anyway, what I do is just try to be a bit more social, a bit more interesting, keep the T levels high, and when I get lonely message a bunch of chicks on POF. It doesn't really get me the results I want, but that's all the effort I am willing to put into it. The upside is that I'm more peaceful when I don't have to measure everything in terms of what kind of female attention I am getting. In fact the only time it really bothers me is when I see other people with hot chicks and think that I'm better than them so I should be getting the chicks.