It's hard to tell guys who are average or below average in looks that they need to settle. Most guys who wind up on a site like this have been drinking some sort of self improvement/new age/law of attraction Kool Aid pretty hard. They really believe this stuff. This type of material is everywhere. Just daydream about a lambo and miss teen USA and the car will be in your garage and the girl will be sitting in your lap soon enough.
Some of these guys get a double dose with RSD looks don't matter marketing. Then they actually go out and try it approaching everything in sight and get walloped. Then they try again and fail again. They try over and over again throughout their 20's. Maybe they get a bite from a fattie or two. Or maybe they don't. If they're smart, they "settle' for a normal/average looking girlfriend and get married.
Then there are guys who don't even try and they find themselves still single. In their 30's. Or they wait until even later. Then they wind up in the manosphere, MGTOW or just plain Incel. They're really in trouble now. If they were average or below average in their 20's, then the situation is usually likely to decline by their late 30's.
Now they are in their 40's. Now they're looking at mail order/internet brides from Eastern Europe and/or china or Colombia or wherever. At this point, their dating value has dropped off sharply. If they were a 5 or 6 in their 20's, a 4 or 5 in their 30's, now they are a 3 or 4. They are just begging to be ripped off. Dating scammers are seasoned vets duping gullible, desperate guys with rock bottom dating market value.
Not only that, these guys are competing against good looking guys in their 40's who are fresh off a divorce who actually have some game and are better looking. This means these guys are settling for sex workers and fake girlfriend experience types in Thailand, Brazil, or some other sex tourist spots.
So, guys in the average/below average categories, the choice is simple: marry a girl who is average looking but loyal and live far more happily than they would otherwise alone, and subject to constant sex scams as they try to pursue hot women. I know a lot of good guys in their 30's who are perfectly happy with somewhat average looking wives. These women are sweet and loyal and they have hobbies in common and provide each other with companionship.
I hope everyone who reads this figures this out sooner rather than later: average and below average looking guys cannot be players who pull hot or even cute girls on the regular. There's way too much competition out there and they are equally skilled, and far better looking and almost always far better socially connected.
Settling ain't bad. It means you didn't get scammed for years or even decades on end. Don't let the scammers win!