How to respond on Hinge when she jokes that she's bad at small talk

A line like "I'm bad at small talk" is almost always a request. She's saying the usual opening is going to be slow and she'd rather skip it. That means the most useful thing you can do is pick up the steering and point the conversation at something specific enough that she can answer with more than a shrug.

Read the rest of her profile before you reply. If she mentions a trip, a dog, a job, or an odd hobby, that's your material. You're not trying to impress her with what you know about her. You're showing that you read what she wrote, which is the thing a generic opener never does. A specific question gets a specific answer, and a specific answer is where the chat starts to feel like a conversation.

A reply that works usually does two things in order. It acknowledges what she said in a single line, then moves to a real question or observation. The acknowledgement should be quick and a little warm, enough that she knows you heard it and didn't flinch. The move that follows is the part that does the work.

You can tell a draft is working when it has one clear place for her to answer. If you can see two different questions in it, cut one. If the acknowledgement is longer than the question, cut the acknowledgement. Leave out apologies, promises to do better at the chat, and any comment on how the conversation is going so far.

Match the pace she's set. If she sent her message in the afternoon, answer within a few hours and not after you've spent an evening drafting. Long delays on Hinge make the exchange feel like homework, which is exactly the thing she was trying to avoid.

If she doesn't reply within a day or two, send one short follow-up that's easy to answer, such as a question about the thing she mentioned in her profile. If that goes unanswered too, stop. Two unanswered messages in a row is a clear signal, and a third one turns a light chat into something that feels like chasing.