It's possible that any given person can, as you say, work harder and achieve success in dating, and that it is impossible for everyone to do it because of structural reasons.

For example, if there are 800 million men in your country and 700 million women, "try harder" will only work for 700 million men and will never work for the other 100 million (assuming they want long-term monogamous marriages etc.)

SF isn't China/India but even in SF there is enough structural imbalance that "work harder" won't be enough to help 10s of thousands of young men.