"Hey" - How do you respond to that?

[enhancer 1,584]

How do you respond to a message that just says Hey or do you respond at all?

[njbm 2,868]

Hey. 

[TnA83 305]

Sometimes, "Hi there."

[Fundamental Law 2,885]

"Hey" is an utterance that simply seeks one's attention. It's an alert more than a coherent thought. There is are times, places, and contexts for such alerts--for example, if one perceived a threat (hey means "watch out"), etc.  When used as an introduction (this is what the OP queries), it is the equivalent of using "Pass" as the first move in Words With Friends. That is, it wants the receiver of the alert to "make the first move". 

 

Responding "hey yourself", "hi there", "Good morning." or similar phrase simply says "Pass. If you have something to say, do so." In our experience, this rarely is a useful exchange.  (An exception might be announcing one's presence in a group chat. )

 

We prefer a bid for conversation, for example "Good morning. We noticed your profile and were curious about your experiences on lifestyle river cruises. We are scheduled on our first cruise and wondered about...whatever...."   Such a bid tells us that the correspondent(s) (a) read at least part of our profile and (b) have a purpose in contacting us. 

 

 

[Fitlakecouple 451]

"Hey" gets ignored and deleted...

[NC_Seniors 518]

The last paragraph of our SLS Profile reads as follows:

 

Finally ... if you contact us via SLS Messaging, at least send a few sentences to introduce yourselves and tell us why you like our Profile. We'll ignore any messages that say nothing more than "Hey!", "How y'all doin'?", or "Lookin' good!".

 
So no … we don’t reply.

[cplnuswing 4,713]

Same here, just gets ignored.  If you don't have enough serious interest in us to take the time to write at least a few words to demonstrate that interest, then we'll pass.  In our experience, those type of folks are usually just wanting a chat buddy to start with.

[GoldCoCouple 4,065]

If they have nothing more interesting to say other than 'hey', then answering them would be a waste of both of our time.

[cplnluv1 871]

[Sophy 569]

If they are not interested in being a little bit more eloquent when contacting us, we are not going to be interested either, same for couples that don't put a little bit of effort into their profile.

[enhancer 1,584]

Even better then the “hey” message is the “hey sup” message we got from another clown today!  So enticing and intelligent.  Hard to resist that dude.  Only thing missing was a picture of his dick to match the same one on his profile they usually send lol.