I’ll try and minimize personal info in this post so that it’s harder to dox me. I am a cishet white man without any romantic experience who is interested in trying online dating. I know that resources about doing this exist, but I don’t know how to find them without getting PUA or other harmful advice mixed in.
What do I need to know/do/have before I try this?
Which apps should I use?
Are there guides that give relatively simple information on how to avoid harmful situations with online and not online dating?
Thanks for the advice 
It’s been a long time, but if I recall:
The apps suck. They sucked when I was dating and everything I’ve heard since is that they suck more now. Go in with low expectations, and look up how to create an engaging profile. Online dating is part marketing, which is probably why it sucks. The point is to get to meet people you wouldn’t otherwise meet, but it’s got a lot of drawbacks.
In the real world and with online dating, best thing to do is to go have fun and genuinely get to know people. Not just people you want to date, either, but generally. You will vastly increase your dating pool if you increase your overall exposure to other people, and if you have fun doing it then it won’t feel like a chore. That, and lots of women will be attracted to someone who is a good hang. Find activities with mixed genders being done by people in your age range.
In either case, don’t take things too seriously. It’s okay to tell someone you like them, and if they’re not interested, let them know it’s not a big deal. There’s a lot of social pressure built into dating that doesn’t need to exist. If you can be forward in a respectful way, and also take rejection in a way that shows you’re not getting weirdly overinvested, you’ll feel better and more confident in being vulnerable. If you do it right, you’ll also get a good reputation as someone who won’t play weird games or get overly dramatic.
The people who are good at dating and actually enjoy it are out having fun with other people and then occasionally following the signs when there’s chemistry. If you treat it like a chore or an existential crisis, it’s going to be unpleasant. I think that’s why you hear stories of people “giving up” on dating and then ending up meeting someone shortly thereafter. The lack of expectations and pressure makes it easier to be authentic, which is what people are looking for in the first place, whereas being too overtly focused on finding sexual or romantic partners can come off as desperate or aggressive.
So yeah, make friends, men and women, try to go outside your current social circle, and do it in ways that you find fun and interesting. In many ways it’s a numbers game, and you just need to meet enough people.
Doesn’t hurt to take care of your physical appearance, either. Groom yourself properly, wear clothing that fits, and dress in ways that signal the types of women you want to meet. If you like preppy women, dress preppy. If you like punks, get punk. If you like normcore, be normcore. Just be intentional and women will notice.
There’s no science to this, but it does come naturally if you let it.
I’m not happy about it, either, but it’s worth a try.
pretty much all the medical, social, and financial barriers between me and a date are also in the way of any connection with anyone.
I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t mean to make light of the difficulty with connecting with people. It’s hard at the best of times, and only gets harder as you add barriers and complications. I just want to encourage people to try, because often the main barrier is that it’s anxiety-provoking, which is a barrier that can often be overcome. Obviously it’s not the only barrier.