For me this topic has always been problematic. I've been just going through it in my therapy sessions recently, and I think that my problem could be summarized as: as soon as I like some man I feel I'm pathetic, and as soon as someone likes me I feel he's pathetic. Because liking someone (in a romantic sense) is being needy and this should be avoided at any cost. As the result, an actual relationship could happen only on the intersection of me liking but not liking him and he liking but not liking me - so ambivalence, which is a perfect breeding ground for a toxic relationship (actually ambivalence is often present in narcissists).
I think I made one step forward in this puzzle now. I will go straight to the point:
I've been objectifying men!
Maybe getting out of my toxic dysfunctional reaction to the opposite sex is as simple as seeing another human in a man! A person with their likes, dislikes, opinions, dreams, personality. I realised that getting out of my "mate or not to mate" perspective is changing a lot. It's been just another established maladaptation that's in fact very limited and immature. I wasn't even aware of it, it's been under my radar all this time.
Once I see a man as another person, the whole new world opens up. I start understanding why people wanna be with one person but not with another. I thought that attraction is the only thing that matters. So far I've not been paying attention to whether I can actually relate to the person of the opposite sex. Everything was so two dimensional and oversimplified for me. That's how I would often end up entangled in complex situations that were not serving anyone.