The most infuriating opening line any man can send is “Hey.” "Hey" is to Tinder what "Can we talk?" is to office Slack. Heys run rampant on dating apps among a particular kind of dude. You don't want to be this dude. He's the guy who doesn't want to waste the brain power to formulate a relevant comment about a woman's bio—even if it mentions I'm Gemini rising and includes a photo where I'm posing with actual wolves. The opening lines write themselves. (“So I guess you’re Team Jacob, huh?”)
Women receive a deluge of heys when they check their Tinder messages. “Hey” can mean anything from “Weirdly enough, I run a wolf sanctuary and would love to offer you the best job in the world working at it” to “I dated your frenemy eons ago and deeply messed with her head, can’t wait to do that to you!” It can also mean “cool jorts” and “I’m drunk.” Not only does reaching out with a “hey” put all the effort of starting a proper conversation on the recipient, but it gives the recipient zero insight into the messenger's motives or temperament. “Hey” is the worst.
Still, it remains the No. 1 message I receive from men, even outside dating apps. A few weeks back, an old college boyfriend’s former roommate hit me up over Facebook Messenger with a “hey,” which I fully ignored. Some 30 minutes later, he followed up with “Wow, nevermind, I guess!” I didn’t respond to that either. This is a person with whom I never shared a connection, save occasionally bumping into him in a gross kitchen a freaking decade ago. What did he want? I’ll never know. But honestly, that is fine.
“Hey” is the most cowardly way to kick off a gut check, to see whether the person you're messaging will guide the conversation from a bare-minimum greeting. Sure, “Hey” could be the beginning of “Hey, isn’t Bob Boilen’s voice the most soothing?” (It is.) I guess I can see how leaving your greeting ambiguous leaves room for the second party to set the tone. But women are growing weary of “Hey.” We know now that a “hey” may be a trap. We may end up stuck in a mundane conversation for an indefinite amount of time.
I also don’t love when men whisper “hey” after boning, but at least in that scenario the hey is a continuation of a previously existing (albeit mostly physical) conversation. If you start an exchange, on any platform, it’s also your job to advance it. It’s Small Talk 101: Questions are a great way to get another human talking back to you. Even if you’re messaging a stranger with zero interesting leads in their Bumble bio, you can always ask them a generic question. Some decent options include: “How are you?” and “What’s up?” and “What are you doing to prepare for the apocalypse?” If you’re on a dating app, surely you are messaging this person because something sparked your interest. Did they graduate from your cousin’s alma mater? Ask about the on-campus dive you drank at while visiting him a couple years ago. Do they have a great smile? Compliment it and add a corny question about needing shades around them. Are you just drunk and horny and swiped right by accident while balancing on the toilet? Stick with “How’s it going?”
I understand that putting yourself out there—composing a question—opens you up to the possibility of rejection. Say you spend a precious ten seconds double-checking the spelling of “Ithaca College” only for someone to slap you back with a whole lot of nothing. You don’t want to look dumb! But you don’t look dumb for giving a damn. Vulnerability is so hot right now. It shows confidence. Hopefully, you’re only speaking to people you truly believe will want to talk back to you, so believe in that. If you’re pretty sure they don’t want to talk with you, then don’t even bother.
Perhaps when my old college boyfriend’s former roommate reached out, he was poised to shower me in both personal and professional compliments so pure that they would cancel out the loathsome fact that I ate corn chips and gummy worms for lunch that day. (More likely, he was probably going to complain to me about a recent breakup—a very popular tactic among estranged men trying to reconnect with long-ago female acquaintances.) The possible outcomes are endless when you give someone an in. A “hey” is not an in. Show a little creativity and put yourself out there.
Still seem too vulnerable for you? Fine. At least add an emoji.
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