How to Respond When She Just Says Hey

Give her something easy to answer. A bare hey almost always means she is curious but is not going to carry the opening herself, which is common on the apps where she has to write first. So do not send hey back. Take one thing she actually put on her page, say something about it, and ask her one small question.

It helps to understand why it happens before deciding what it means.

On the platforms where women have to send the first line, a lot of them are writing that line to men they liked without having planned anything to say. There is a time limit, the queue is long, and hey is what gets typed when somebody wants to keep the door open and is out of ideas.

That is not disinterest. She chose you out of a list and then hit the same blank page you hit. Reading it as a test, or as her being lazy, gets you nowhere useful.

It hands the problem straight back to her, and now it is worse, because two people have both declined to start.

The exchange either dies there or limps through three more lines of nothing before somebody stops replying. Either way you have spent a real opportunity on the least interesting thing you could have typed.

The same is true of the slightly dressed up versions. Hey, how's it going. Hey, how was your weekend. Those are not openings, they are requests for her to produce content, and she is already telling you she would rather not.

Three parts, in this order, and it fits in two lines.

One specific thing from her page, so she knows you read it. One short opinion or joke about that thing, so there is something to push against. One question she can answer without effort. That is the whole structure, and it works because it gives her an obvious thing to type.

An example. She has a photo at a ski lift and a line about hating mornings. Reply: "Someone who hates mornings and skis anyway is a contradiction I need explained. How early is too early on a ski day?" It is not clever. It is specific, it is warm, and the answer writes itself.

Most men reach for a photograph, because it is the first thing they see. The written lines are better material.

A photograph mostly gives you her face and a location. A line she wrote gives you her opinions and her sense of humor, and those are the things you can actually have an exchange about. If she wrote three answers, one of them will be the one she was pleased with. Pick that one.

If there is genuinely nothing written, use what the images show rather than what she looks like. Where it was taken, what she was doing, the dog she is holding. Anything except a comment on her face, which is the one reply she has already received eleven times this week.

The question does the mechanical work, so keep it small.

Open questions like tell me about yourself and what are you into feel friendly and are actually a chore. She now has to decide how much of her life to summarize for a stranger. A narrow question is easier and gets answered faster: which place, how long, best one you have had, would you do it again.

A question with a right answer she can argue with is even better, because disagreeing is the most enjoyable thing to type.

Sometimes there is genuinely nothing. Four images, no writing, and no hook anywhere.

You have two reasonable options. Ask about the most specific thing visible, even if it is small, because specificity still beats nothing. Or say something light about the one word she sent, which acknowledges the situation without being sour about it: "Hey. Bold opener, I respect the economy of it. What is the best thing you have done this month?"

What you should not do is send a long paragraph to fill the silence. That reads as effort she has not earned yet, and it makes the imbalance worse.

The point of the reply is not to have a nice chat. It is to get to a specific evening while she still remembers liking your page.

Two or three exchanges each is usually plenty. Once there is any warmth in it, name a place and a night. Something small and specific beats a vague let us get a drink sometime, which is the phrase that quietly kills more of these than a bad opening line ever does.

She opened with one word. What you do with the next ten is the part that matters.