In my head, it makes sense to start off slow, I mean you're texting a total stranger who you know nothing about, so I usually just start with hi or hey hows it going or something to that affect, but I also notice I get a lot of straight up ghosting when I do that.

Are girls expecting some funny pickup line before they invest themselves with a response every time (in the past I've also tried this with similar results so I really just dont know)?

I mean I honestly don't text that often with friends or anything so I find that to be a bit of a daunting task ahead of me, but I also don't really wanna waste my time if "hey" seems really low effort or something and will just get me nowhere in the end anyways.

I'm just trying to get a sense of what others do to start things off with their matches. I know everyone says to be funny but it feels weird to try and come up with something before I know anything about her yet, as if I'm some kinda comedian with a bunch of great jokes and pickup lines just stuffed away in my pocket for a rainy day. I mean, I can always just Google canned lines that other people have used, but yeah, that just feels very disingenuous so idk