Yes I know some guys in my life who were not having much success with dating - just average - they said the same as you - virtually no difference after they built up to super body.
Women look at your face, expression, eyes, listen to voice, what you say, personality, sincerity, warmth, how you listen and respond, humour etc. What is below your neck is really not that relevant as long as you look reasonable - is the message I seem to get from my own life experience and people I know. I am sure there must be exceptions.
I admire your dedication of 2-3 hours of gym a day for years. Even if I knew I would be Mr. Wonderful to all women - I doubt I could do that. Women can take me as I am and if I my chest is not broad enough for her to rest her pretty face - she's not the one for me anyway, if that's the deal maker/breaker.
I've had 4 serious relationships in the past decade. Longest lasted 3 years. They also came from online dating. With the exception of 1, they were all toxic relationships, unfortunately. Not sure if that's because they came from online or what. One cheated on me with her ex continually. He wouldn't settle and she wanted marriage, a child, the works (these were her own admissions), so she wanted to settle for someone who'd give her all that — me. She even reserved a venue for marriage to try to force engagement, but I didn't go through with it. I broke up with her. She was always trying to change me; trying to get me to dress different, get a different career (as a psychologist, like my degree, rather than at NBC), tan, and shave all body hair. She was rich, as a dentist, so she offered to pay for that procedure where they permanently laser hair off you.
Another ex of mine cheated, too. We agreed to wait on sex, but she was secretly boinking behind-the-scenes. She sent me a nasty text and admitted it. I broke up with her for other toxic reasons, so then she admitted that — perhaps she was just trying to make me feel bad. She was involved with gangs and some other shady stuff, I found out, so that's one of the reasons I left.
And another ex — my most recent one — had relationship OCD and was emotionally abusive. She would imagine the worst-case scenarios about what I must be doing and assume they were true; wouldn't let me counter, even. For example, I invited her grandma to Thanksgiving dinner and I didn't know she couldn't walk up stairs due to a disability. They had stairs at their house, so I didn't know. The entrance was the only way in and out, and was occupied by stairs with no ramp, and grandma left frequently. So how would I know? But when she later found out that there were stairs at the invitation house, she freaked out and said I was duping her into an invite in some manipulative way — that I should've known better. And she wouldn't even let me talk it out with her or defend myself; she just assumed the worst and ran with it, and attacked ferociously. I later found out they had a removable ramp for the entrance.
And left field accusations like that kept coming and coming. The incident that led to her finally dumping me was equally sad. Beforehand, I worded what I said very carefully to try to avoid a fight. It was like walking on eggshells all the time, so I preconceived the possibility that she'd be triggered. My boss had changed my work schedule a couple days before because of an added Spurs Basketball game to broadcast on an NBC station, and I had to do it. So I asked her if she was free another day; that we could spend time together if she was available Wednesday instead of Tuesday. We didn't even have plans yet. But she assumed we'd hang on Tuesday. But she took my question as me trying to take advantage of her time, and it led to another fight where I defended myself, so she dumped me. We were only together 7 months. I endured the emotional abuse for about 3 months because I was trying to work through it with her since it was ROCD. I even studied ROCD to frame my questions carefully and what not, but it was to not avail. There came a point where she reneged on that, even, and said she didn't have that condition. She was just too full of pride and couldn't accept that she had done anything wrong; and she had unaddressed demons from the past because of abandonment from her parents, which she said she was over from, but never got therapy for.
I even tried to reconcile with her a month after the breakup, as the abuse left me feeling very confused and I still had strong feelings for her. But she just took that opportunity to be mean and say that she saw me through the seasons, and that I failed. She had apologized many times before that for her behavior, but at this point, she's was caught up in so much denial and pride that she took the stance that she hadn't done anything wrong.
The only good relationship I had was with a woman in 2012 that lasted 8 months. We had the best times together and she genuinely cared for me, but I was young and didn't handle it right, I guess. She was smoking cigs and pot, doing some nasty drugs, which I didn't like, and dressed like a 12 y/o when she was 25 at the time. So those turnoffs made me stray. I talked to her about them before, but nothing changed — and that was just who she was. Those things weren't downright "evil," like my other exes, but they were turnoffs, so I broke the relationship off. Maybe I was young and immature at that time. I dunno. But ya, bad dating history here and now I feel f'd cuz of severe tinnitus and hyperacusis.