I'd add that it's useful to build your presence online - via tweets, blogposts, or replyguying - before you cold DM people. If they recognize your pfp and have read some of your comments, the chances that they'd respond go up by 10X at least. This is how I got in touch with many big Twitter accounts - I often comment on their posts, and when I DMed them, they recognized me, and we started to chat.
Nice post! Being single for half a year or so, I recently overcame a major rejection phobia I had with approaching women. Or, let's say I made progress. It used to absolutely crush my self-esteem only thinking about getting a rejection, and for days afterward, I'd question my presence in that situation and so on. But at one point, it dawned on me that, first of all, (I know this sounds stupid, but) half of all humans on earth are women, and that, hence, they are as abundant as men and that I wouldn't have to crush myself internally given one's non-interest. There are "plenty of fish." But that aside, the point I want to emphasize more strongly here, is what was also mentioned in the post: > In reality, there are hundreds of variables that come into play here (most notably, a good amount of luck) but we don’t like complex systems. We like simple ones. So understanding the nuances can be tricky. This so many times. The circumstances of meeting another person, the weather, the moods, the clothing, the environment, their last day, etc., are all variables that make "meeting the right one" an incredible game of chance. I surely could follow all pickup artists' advice online or whatever, be the perfect gentleman, and have my trade down to every movement. And I'd still encounter people on the street who absolutely would not be open to meeting me at that specific moment in time, entirely independent of my control and independent of anyone's fault. So, that thought was quite freeing to me, and I have since then managed to relax my anxiety significantly. I don't have to crush myself for being rejected. It's then just an unlucky situation, and I can move on.