the easiest time for dating as a man is 17-21...when you go to high school and college and are surrounded with easy opportunities to meet girls with minimal to no obstacles.
So many people want to say that dating is easy for men once you become successful and established but that's a bunch of bullsh*t. Looks, money, etc... none of that sh*t is anywhere near as important as having easy and natural dating opportunities when you're younger. There are plenty of average looking, chubby and completely broke college boys out there who could find 5 beautiful quality girlfriends before I could even get a date. I don't meet women in any aspect of my daily routine and things like online dating and cold approaching come with a spectacular difficulty curve, no matter how good of a catch I make myself.
Anybody here who is high school or college, please don't waste your great opportunities. I would cut my arm off to be able to go back to college when I had beautiful, classy and smart girls in every class surrounding me. I was such a f*cking idiot and didn't realize the opportunities and ruined it due to my extreme anxiety and non existent self esteem. I wish I could go around the country and tell this story to young boys everywhere. Dating will NOT get any easier as you get older. You need to figure things out in high school and college
That depends heavily on you. If you were in a position of social relevance at that age, and if you had the natural social skills already, heck yeah it's easy. In my case, I was a complete kid at 17, the same kid I was at 12. I hadn't a single clue about what was happening around me. Now that I'm older, have seen more sh!t, now that I have a more firm grasp on what's going on around me, everything is smoother. I know the whys and hows. Maybe that's not important for you or most guys, but it is for me. Now is when I have the connections, the social position, the skills, everything is in place for me. To me it's easier now because despite of all the work you mentioned, I was never able to figure it out by myself without anybody introducing me to stuff, "the easy way". I needed the work.
If you're 17 and know all this already and are comfortable doing stuff, go for it! I wasn't. I didn't have what I needed to succeed back then.