Why Your DM Game Is Failing Before You Hit Send

My inbox is a crime scene.

The same “approach” repeated thousands of times.
Guys slide into DMs as if the only thing that matters is the first line. They treat it like a lottery ticket: say the magic sentence, win the woman.

Meanwhile the actual decision gets made before the sentence is even read.

Because the first thing that happens after a DM lands is simple:
She clicks your profile.

And what she sees either gives her a reason to respond… or gives her a reason to keep scrolling while your “hey how are you” just sits there.
The belief that keeps wrecking your DMs

The belief is that DMs are “messaging.”
They’re not. They’re screening.

A DM from a stranger is not a conversation starter. It’s a request for access from someone with no context. That means you’re not being judged on your opener. You’re being judged on whether interacting with you looks normal, safe, and worth five minutes.

No one wants to do volunteer work in their own inbox.
So if your profile is vague, locked, messy, or weirdly intense, your opener becomes irrelevant. Not “bad.” Just irrelevant.
What happens when a DM fails

Men love blaming the message. “She didn’t like my opener.” “Women only respond to X.” “It’s the algorithm.”

Here’s what the failure actually looks like on the receiving end:
  • A DM comes in.
  • Your profile gets clicked.
  • The brain does a fast read: real person or question mark?
  • If it’s a question mark, the message stays unopened or gets ignored.
That’s the whole story. No mystery. No grand “female psychology.” Just basic filtering.
So let’s talk about the mistakes I see constantly — the ones that kill you before your first line even has a chance.
Mistake 1: The private profile

A private profile is you asking for access while offering none.
It reads like: “Let me into your world. Mine is classified.”

A private profile makes your DM look like spam. It also makes you look like someone with something to hide — because you’re forcing a stranger to guess.

If you’re going to DM women you don’t know, don’t show up as a locked door. A locked door doesn’t get curiosity. It gets skipped.

Mistake 2: “Hey how are you”

This opener is the male version of tapping a stranger on the shoulder and then standing there silently.

It contributes nothing. It creates work.
It puts the burden on her to:
  • invent a tone
  • invent a topic
  • decide what you want
  • decide how to respond
A lot of men do this and then act offended when it gets ignored. Not because it’s “impolite.” Because it’s empty.

A DM should do one clear job: make responding easy.
“Hey” makes responding optional.
Mistake 3: Photos that say nothing about you

This is the “I’m a man on earth” profile.

  • steering wheel shot
  • gym mirror shot
  • dark club shot
  • blurry group shot where nobody can tell which one you are
  • one selfie from the neck up like you’re applying for a passport
If your photos don’t communicate anything about your life, you’re not “keeping it simple.” You’re offering no context.

Women don’t need a documentary. They need basic signals:

  • you exist in daylight
  • you leave the house
  • you have a normal social life
  • you’re not a question mark

Mistake 4: The ex-girlfriend scrapbook

Couple photos are not “proof you can commit.”
They’re proof you don’t manage your presentation.
If your feed is full of cozy, romantic, “we were definitely together” photos with the same woman, it immediately creates a problem you didn’t intend:

  • unresolved situation
  • messy guy
  • poor judgment
  • or someone who likes keeping trophies
None of those helps a DM.

There’s a second version of this mistake too: deleting every woman from your profile like you’re scrubbing a crime scene. The result is a profile that looks socially blank and overly controlled.

Either extreme makes your DM harder to trust.
Mistake 5: The American Psycho profile

The perfect profile that’s so perfect it’s cold.
Everything is curated like a luxury ad:

  • perfect suit
  • perfect lighting
  • perfect angles
  • perfect body
  • zero warmth
  • zero human moments
This doesn’t read “high value.” It reads “performing.”
It’s the vibe of a guy who might hand someone a business card after a date and ask for feedback.

Mistake 6: The bro-culture billboard

All dudes. All gym. All cigars. All watches. All bottle service. All memes about “grind.” All photos that look like they were taken to impress other men.

This is not “masculine.” It’s weird.
And it pulls the wrong direction: it signals you’re playing to a male audience while trying to DM a woman.

If the profile looks like a fraternity recruitment flyer, the DM gets treated like one too.
The fix is not “better lines.” It’s DM-readiness.

A DM works when two things are true:

  1. Your profile makes responding make sense.
  2. Your first message gives a specific reason to respond.
That’s it.

No tricks. No theatrics. No pretending to be someone else.
So here’s the clean, usable standard to apply today — without turning this into a whole course.

Make your profile DM-ready in 20 minutes

This is not a glow-up project. This is a credibility project.

1) Go public if you DM strangers
Not forever. Not for your boss. For dating.
If you need privacy for work, build a separate public-facing dating profile. The point is simple: don’t ask for access while offering none.

2) Have 4–6 photos that answer “what’s your life?”
Pick photos that show:
  • your face clearly (more than once)
  • you in daylight (at least one)
  • one social photo (friends, event, something normal)
  • one context photo (travel, hobby, restaurant, activity — anything that isn’t just your face)
No speeches. No captions required. Just basic context.

3) Remove the couple-coded ex content
Old relationship photos don’t make you look wanted. They make you look unmanaged.
Clean it up. Keep your history, lose the optics problem.

4) Stop looking like a corporate headshot with abs
One polished photo is fine. If every photo looks like an ad, it creates distance.
Add one human photo. A real smile. A normal moment. Something that says you’re not a walking audit.

If your DMs don’t work, it’s rarely a “DM problem.”
It’s a positioning problem.

It’s how you come across before you ever speak. It’s what your profile says about you. It’s what your choices signal. It’s the story you’re telling without realizing you’re telling it.

And that’s why tweaking openers doesn’t move the needle. You’re polishing the knock while the door looks wrong.

If you want to fix this at the root — how you position yourself and how women read you — click here and send me a quick “Hi.” I’ll look at what you’re working with and tell you if we’re a match for personal coaching.