This is true, and I also place a lot of blame on Hollywood romances that depict men as groveling weaklings who go to absurd lengths to "prove their love" to the heroine of the story, who is usually a demanding, spoiled special snowflake who would be considered completely neurotic in the real world.
I have 4 children, 2 sons, 2 daughters, and the youngest son and daughter are completely incompetent at relationships to the point that I despair of ever seeing grandchildren from either of them unless it's an extramarital accident. Both of them sabotage themselves.
My son:
IDK if this means he doesn't find them attractive or if they're friend-zoned, but at least two of them are ready to settle down and make babies, both are conservative in appearance and behavior, neither one is fat, and one of them even discussed with me at length about how 9/11 was a hoax at a barbecue at our house. I tend to think that my son disregards them due to the fact that they dress like ladies and don't drink or do drugs, so they're "boring".
Then when he gets tired of boning them (usually within a couple of months) he complains about how shallow they are and how expensive it is to take them out on dates. Then he complains about how lonely he is like a woman.
Surprisingly enough, this actually extends the life of some of his relationships because if he weren't so busy with his strategies for maneuvering these girls to "where he wants them", he'd probably notice that they weren't suitable in the first week and dump them.
He cancels plans at the last minute, stands girls up, doesn't answer or return their calls for days, calls Friday afternoon for a Friday night date, etc., all in an attempt to "show them their place", and to a degree it's super-effective, because it shows them that their place is in another man's arms. My son insists that all these weird tests and manipulations are necessary to weed out gold-diggers and cheaters, but as far as I can tell It's doing the exact opposite.
Meanwhile, my daughter:
Even though I've explained to her that this isn't even close to reasonable, pointing out that her mother comes in third after my job and our children, and even came in 4th while her grandparents were dying
Nobody wants to be texted 10 times a day, and nobody wants surprise visits. Nobody. I even pointed out how similar her behavior was to a boy who legitimately stalked her older sister, but she still doesn't get it.
She got mad at her boyfriend because he was seen talking to a girl at Lowe's by one of her friends. The girl at Lowe's was a sales girl who sold him a sconce. Unsurprisingly, the girl who reported seeing him at Lowe's started dating the boyfriend after he broke up with my daughter. The sconce was pretty cool though, worth it imho
They'd been together all of two weeks. She also didn't give him the chance to change it once he knew it was important to her; the fight she started over it was so over-the-top that they broke up on the spot. He's married now, has an adorable little son, and seems to be making decent money at a car dealership. He's also nice enough to chat with his psycho ex-girlfriend's father when he bumps into him in public so there's that.
My daughter insists that it's love that makes her do these things and she can't help expressing how she feels. She thinks that any man who really loved her would not only tolerate this behavior, but find some of the stalkerish shit she does "charming". She thinks it's weird that her mother and I never fight, and believes that there's no passion in our relationship because there's no drama, tears, or sexy make-ups. The truth is, my wife and I discuss things in private like adults, and other than kissing and holding hands, we don't express our passion in front of our children because that is weird and gross.