I've watched many video guides on peeking, counter strafing and crosshair placement, and I still can't improve

I play 1 to 2 hours a day

I play DMs (no comp cuz I don't have a mic yet)

In long range duels I try to shoot, they wiggle left and right and I can't shoot them, meanwhile they get me with ease

When I press A/D to strafe left and right so they can't hit me as easily, boom getting one tapped regardless

When they A/D strafe they are somehow able to hit me while my shots while A/D strafing go everywhere

How?

When it comes to peeking, idk exactly how to peek, I'm aiming at a corner, then all of a sudden a player slides sideways out of the corner and one taps me in less than half a second, how am I supposed to react to that?

I even try to crouch as I approach a corner, yet they still get me

And lastly, even if I do have my crosshair at head height, I peek out of a wall/corner and also counterstrafe to stop my self and shoot accurately, they still get me first, how? Is their reflexes/reactions just faster? If yes, how do i improve my reaction time?

stop playing dms and start playing casual/comp

2 things

1 - why?

2 - well I was planning on buying a headset next week, it has a microphone, so I'll be able to play comp

Try refrag.gg or some free preaim maps from the workshop. Play duels/arena/DM on cybershoke.net or xplay.gg

Valve DM servers are full of cheaters farming xp.

DM is chaotic at best you really cannot train your counter stfafing and peeking etc. In that mode. 2x that if you are beginner. Counter strafing is a delicate art, you want to download a practise map like csstats practice map from the steam workshop. Therw you have stationary bots to shoot and practise your movement. Then you can try their ruah feature where bots are running at you, or the one where they strafe around on different position is a practose map settings without shooting you.

You need 100% concentration to think that aim and that you actually get that counter strafe right. So that if you strafe right, you very fast click left so you instantly stop. Sometimes if you press too long and or too fast, before releasing the other button it does not work.
Obe technique at the time. Give yourself time and a break and get yourself a practise map. :)

My post was made based on the experience I got from xplay.gg, not from valve servers (should probably update the post to mention that)

Do you play dm on valve servers? If yes, they are full of bots and cheating AI - bot farms for weekly drops
Better play on cybershoke or xplay, but the skill level there can get pretty high.
But dont limit urself from playing competetive. There are countless players without talking a single word, many more that get muted in the first 3 rounds, so, just play

I was gonna buy a headset next week, I'll start playing comp then

Yeah go for it, competetive is not that deep anyway.
Most of the time my mic is there to have some fun with the team, if they are chill

The people you meet in third party dm are often people who take their game somewhat serious. The reason your shots are all over the place and their shots hit is likely due to counter straling and they likely have more experience.

Anyway cs without a microphone isn't optimal but normal competitive is the new casual so you should be fine. I wouldn't advice premier without though, then people may get annoyed with you.

this game is more about positioning than raw aim/mechanics, they’re killing you first because they already know where your going to be, death matches are also not going to help you if you’re new because you’ll just get shit on constantly and won’t improve, if you just play you’ll learn where to aim. also stop trying to a/d strafe when you can’t even aim standing still, recoil control is also very important because you aren’t going to one tap someone every shot, if you can’t control recoil your aim is useless and you’re relying on your first shot then just randomly spraying hoping to get a kill, people peeking you have peekers advantage, meaning they are more prepared for the fight than you aka you have to react to them, overall work on your macro and util more as it’s more important in this game and stop trying to do fancy tricks, just stay still when you’re shooting and work on recoil and preaiming

Some points. Other ppls feel free to correct me:

1. DMs are alright for training, but use community DM servers rather than the official one. They have a lot of quality-of-life improvements. Official ones are also nearly always riddled with bots who can one-tap you regardless of what you do. Not saying that's what you've experienced, but a possibility.

2. Rather than DM, generally prefire and comp (even casual) are better for learning the game. A lot of the game is just having the experience: knowing the timing and what angles to expect someone to take. This experience can only come from playing matches.

3. On the actual mechanisms, long duels are something a lot of people struggle with. Especially very-long distance ones, like through the Dust 2 CT spawn. Try practicing 3-5 bullet bursts on workshop maps to figure out what's causing you to miss. You'll need pretty good first-bullet accuracy and decent recoil control for it to work.

4. CS2 has strong peeker's advantage. Try to be the one peaking them instead of the other way around. If they expect you on the angle, find a different angle to peek from.

5. On the last point, it sounds like you're wide-swinging a lot. That's good to throw off people's crosshairs, but bad in most cases. You're overexposing yourself to too many angles that you can't react to, especially when you don't know where to pre-aim. Learn angle isolation. It's different from map-to-map and isn't something visible in DM (again, going back to the second point). If you know all the places where the enemy can be, reacting is much easier.

Aim Rush, 4 bots. Map 1.5