Is someone taking initiative with setting you up with a guy different from you asking others to set you up with men they know?
Now that I think of it, I had found jobs via someone I know or a recruiter contacting me about a job opportunity and me taking initiative asking around for a job. For the ones where the other person took initiative in contacting me, I mostly ended up with well-paid jobs. Only one turned out to be strange but I quickly left that job afterwards (as the person who recommended me to the company did not know the company was so fishy). For the ones where I asked around for a job, it all ended up being unpaid internships. One even had a strange boss.
I wonder if the same applies to set ups. If the HV people I know know a HVM they think would be a great match for me, they would have already setted me up with him. Meanwhile, if I had to go around asking others to set me up with men, they would probably set me up with random men where the only thing we have in common is that we are single.
For jobs, you need one to pay the bills so it makes sense to ask around for one if you are unemployed. However, we don't need an SO to survive. I think the companies that offered me an unpaid internship after I asked around for one would see me as desperate and think they did me a huge favour simply by offering me an unpaid position. I think it's the same with men.
Never again. People are terrible at vetting and have set me up with absolute weirdos.
I would be very hesitant to set people up, even if asked to do so. If it doesn't work out, will people feel personally insulted by me for thinking they might be compatible? If, for example, the guy has some problem trait unknown to me, will I get the blame for failing to know everything there is to know about the guy?
The cost for me could be ruined friendships and burnt bridges. And how much does it benefit me even if it works out? Not much.
Sensible people don't tend to take on this risk completely unprompted. This is why you need to ask. You can be selective about who you ask if you don't want to deal with quite so many duds. If you ask people who are not discerning and do not have sound judgment, that's at least partly on you.
It also remains your own responsibility to vet the guy after you are introduced. The person introducing you presumably haven't dated the guy, or fucked the guy, and will have some gaps in knowledge about the guy.
This is not the same thing as asking companies for a job. Unlike a job search, when you are looking for a connection of a personal nature, you presumably only ask people who know you and wish you well. Not people you don't know well, who might want to exploit you. Nor strangers who don't give a shit about you.
It doesn't actually matter if some people think you're desperate. At the end of the day, try as they might, no one can force you to date men you don't want to date.
I'm not completely against set ups but I think the quality of the set up depends greatly on the person setting you up. That is to say, if the person setting you up is a pickme or a LVM, chances are the person they set you up with will be low value too. Birds of a feather flock together and all that. However if the person offering to set me up was high value, then I would be willing to consider it.