1. Yes, generally all markets in the west are a terrible deal for men, and the trend is down, so prepare for it to get worse before it gets better if it ever does get better.
2. Online game skews the already poor market for men even more. Here you have a lot of mentally ill women many of whom are scared to go out of the house, or the more 'normal' ones still have loads of issues. Full of 49ers. You are just another screen she can flick through. Cut out online game, it's shit in the western world unless you really are going through a long dryspell (1+ year). Choose your battleground wisely, and for most men online game has defeated them before they have even begun.
3. Your high quality early in your life was due to your being in social circles. You may have been the orbiter friend, but you at least had regular access to interact socially with these hot girls. You were lucky you managed to turn the relationships intimate, because so many more men remain in the friendship abyss, wasting time/effort for nothing in return but stories about how hot this or that man is. However it is yet more proof that being an orbiter is a legitimate strategy, true it is shunned by many men in the cold approach focsed "PUA" scene, but just being FRIENDS with women at least gives you opportunities to escalate. Many women are not welcoming of another man as they may be otherwise engaged at the moment, but there may be other times where the window is open. You need to seize that opportunity. It's definitely possible to game while being an "orbiter" with a girl. I prefer a middle ground of just being a good but casual friend, not being a pushover, yet sometimes tolerating listening to her crap and pretending you care. Collect these hot female "friends" and you have over time many high quality girls that might have a brief open window, and during the time they don't, female friends have lots of other female friends, once they introduce you it's a very warm "social circle" approach. One girl may never sleep with you no matter what you do. You may have ginger hair and she is stubbornly against gingers in the romantic sense, but she will have no problem telling her girlfriend(s) how cool and sweet you are. Disadvantages of social circle are that it is hard to maintain. Do you want to be 10 girls' emotional tampon? In highschool I used to be genuine friends with some girls. But you can try to make it fun We bonded over R&B music and school gossip. I liked the fact that these girls liked some of the same music I did, so we traded songs on MSN. I think some of them were genuinely wanting me to escalate, but they are also OK if you don't as they like to have you as a friend. Then when a girl is crying in front of me about her boyfriend breaking up with her, what do?
4. The best source high quality girls if cold approach must be done, is during the day. Try this instead of online game because online game is gay and far more rigged against you than any game IRL, and the state of IRL game is bad enough as it is. If you're doing things online then even the best chicks who are serious about online dating, are average at best, and usually with lots of issues (beware and heed the warning signs). You will never access the quality you can get from walking the streets of a busy city centre or a busy supermarket.