My husband was in your exact position at age 23, though he was in grad school (studying abroad in the US, since he was from another counrtry). He actually used to despair that he would be a virgin for the rest of his life, if that sounds familiar to you.
But that year, he decided to take initiative with a lot of things in his life--he took a vacation in Iceland (something that eventually became very important in our relationship), he started doing kick-boxing classes (not the lame aerobics kind, but the real thing), he took salsa lessons, he went to parties (not pot-smoking ones, but parties where all the fun international students went--and I went, too), he went to the gym and worked out--and I started noticing all this, because he was doing a lot of these activities with my roommates at the time, and he got my attention. We started chatting on MSN all the time, in between seeing each other with our friends during social events, and I really liked what I saw in him.
After a couple of months, I figured out that he liked me, and soon he told me how he felt (though he was quite shy and had to get a bit drunk to tell me, hehe). That was on his 24th birthday. We've been together ever since, 4.5 years now and married for almost 2. I'm writing to tell you that things really can happen this way. It's not rocket science. Being nice and caring is great and all, but it's not enough. You have to get the girl's attention somehow, and be an intriguing person in your own right, who has the boldness to straight up ask a woman on a date, and be able to handle whatever she says back to you. Over and over and over again. Try and get yourself to that point, in whatever way it takes.