Choice of Mods

No you are not weird for that, dating apps are designed to keep you in them and the people using them have developed a specific mentality you might not align with. Yes you're reading too much romance, but at least you aren't expecting "The One" to be a billionaire mob boss that kidnaps you or whatever so you're not too far gone yet.

You are, but who's to say that you won't? Apart from fails, there's also been many success stories in them.

I feel you

No, in my experience its really not that out of the norm. Definitely harder now, what with third spaces disappearing, but also not impossible.