This hasn't been my experience. I use only eSIMs now on an iPhone 13. I buy eSIMs via Airalo's iOS app (not affiliated, not an ad but love it).
It takes me 30 seconds from buying an eSIM in any country worldwide from their app, paying with Apple Pay, to having it active and working with data and voice line.
I travel a lot and before it'd take 15 minutes to sometimes an hour of driving to a phone shop or finding it at the airport, getting your passport copied (fraud risk), getting foreign money in cash out to pay, and handing a stranger your phone.
Big improvement for me. And I can run 2x eSIMs at the same time!
The problem with services like Airalo is that they almost never give you a local phone number. In many countries getting a phone number involves showing a physical id.
Although every man's circles are different, your experience is highly common. I'm going to intentionally dramatize a little to get the point across efficiently.
Men effectively live in an emotional desert. Showing emotion, vulnerability or dependency is discouraged, dismissed or even ridiculed. Men lack a support system. They're often the last buck and there's nothing or nobody to back them up.
This is why to many men, their relation with their mother is holy. It's often the only source of genuine unconditional love and a safe place to be vulnerable. Of course, you can't even have that, this too is to be ridiculed, hence the many "your mum" jokes.
When men get sick, they're ridiculed for being such a baby. Here too a rare sign of vulnerability expressed is to be laughed at.
Men are judged by utility. Society doesn't care about men's needs or problems. They are willingly sacrificed in war, work, homeless on the streets, and in suicide without this even being a topic of mainstream interest.
The handful of reasonable feminists spotting how this complete indifference is a problem are shouted down by their radical counterparts, that have seized the movement. Not only is there no mainstream culture to care about men, it's openly hostile to men in general.
If I were to post my little lecture on a social network, I'd be piled on with: "oh you poor man, you have it sooooo bad lmao!!!"
Anyway, I know none of this helps, but I just wanted to share that your experience in many ways is the experience of many if not most men. And I think you analyzed the situation very well with the "deer in the headlights" remark.
I didn't realize this until recently. Rude awakening. Even the most close relationships turn out to be quite transactional.