Your buddy Dave has been single for three years and thinks "hey u up" is a valid strategy. Your other buddy Mike just got dumped and told you to "just be yourself."
You showed them her text. You asked them to decode the emoji. You drafted four responses and sent the screenshot to the group chat for a vote.
She's been waiting forty minutes.
Put the phone down. Stop crowdsourcing your love life. Type something that sounds like you. Hit send. Then go do literally anything else with your evening.
That sentence contains at least five follow-up questions she WANTS you to ask. Where in Florida? What brought you here? How long have you been in the area? What do you miss? How does it compare to here?
She handed them to you on a silver platter. And you said, "Oh cool. I come here every week. I love this band. Ummm... pretty crowded tonight."
She smiled politely. Nodded. And never texted you back.
I was that guy for years. Talking too much. Listening too little. Panicking about my next sentence while she was literally feeding me the answers.
Then I found 22 rules that fixed the whole thing. Rule number one: shut up and listen. She'll tell you exactly what to say.
There was a "premium" site called beautiful people I believe. They pre-judged all members to see if they were hot enough to join. Once you get past the initial screening, I believe it was like 300 bucks for a membership. I was too cheap to pay for it, but my GF did prior to meeting me. Stick with the majors if you want the best selection. I did well on Bumble and JSwipe (though not Jewish). I did decent with Match too, but way more popular on the BJS apps. Never tried Tinder or Hinge.