If someone has shared a low-stakes yet controversial take in their bio – avocados are bad, actually!
They love pineapple on pizza! They hate pineapple on pizza! They thought Buffy and Angel made sense on Buffy! – it could be an opportunity lightly! playfully! flirtily! engage them on it in a way that is angling for Banter, the way that hip rom coms have taught us we should identify our one true love. “Buffy and Angel! I am, respectfully, horrified. What about when…” This can be an easy way to start talking to someone, and also a good way to tell if you have any kind of overlap or chemistry with someone, at least over text; does the back and forth flow? Are you laughing? Is the other person getting too competitive and taking it too seriously and therefore not fun? There you go.
However, much like other rom-com activities like carrying large cue cards across a city and orchestrating a secret declaration of love with them or having beachy waves every single day, playful banter is actually pretty hard, and if you are feeling unsure of this option or like you aren’t confident you can do it without coming off as argumentative, I would encourage you to honor that feeling! That is fine, there are other things you can say.
Future plans
If “hi” is the absolute bar on the floor of first messages, the followup is “How’s your day?” This is a good question to ask a close friend or coworker or something, but much like with the question “how are you,” when a stranger asks you there is almost no way to respond to it other than “fine!” The things that are happening to us on a day to day basis are frequently boring, often not under our control, and sometimes embarrassing.
