As a guy who used to be on bumble (met my partner there) I will say that any conversation that started with 'hey how's it going' just went nowhere 100% of the time. It's so easy to ask literally anything else. We don't know each other, what's the point in asking how it's going if all you'll ever get as a reply is either "good, and you?" which doesn't break any ice and introduces a lull on the conversation 4 messages into the chat or if it's an honest "pretty shit, actually" the tone of the conversation becomes immediately weird because you don't know each other enough to pry into that.

Things you could ask:

cuddled any cats lately?
what made you smile today/this week?
what song have you played on repeat lately?
play any games lately? (depending on if they list games as their interest, most matches I got listed board games)

This way you'll immediately either find common ground or find differences between your everyday experiences that you can talk about.

[–] GladiusB 9 points 3 months ago

I have made countless attempts to make a personal statement about their pictures or interests and like zero responses. When I just do something stupid or not even think of it, an actual conversation.

I met my GF through bumble too but only because we knew each other and didn't realize we both were divorced now. So I just texted her.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

As someone who's not used these things, what's wrong with a basic handshake to establish the comms channel?

"Hey, are you listening?"

"Yes, go ahead."

...

Isn't that all this really is?

Seems a weird thing for people to be uptight about.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

a handshake is a formality, it's something you do to formalize an interaction, we're formalizing an interaction on a platform that is so personally disconnected it might as well be irrelevant to begin with.

This isn't two people in a room, you don't need to get someones attention by saying "hey" you don't need to open up to them by offering your hand for a handshake, you're both there mutually for the purposes of talking, why wouldn't you get straight to talking?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I also met my partner there. I think it was asking her about some cats in her photos, and then walls of text about absolutely nothing. Thinking back on it, I sounded like a right nutjob, but hey it worked out

[–] hydroxycotton 1 points 3 months ago

It's almost like they could have also said something more than just "hey"