Tinder reply when she opened by saying she has strong opinions about cereal

When someone opens with a strong opinion about something trivial, the trivial part is the point. She is checking whether you will play along, tease back, or lose interest. The specific subject tells you little about her values, so do not read her profile into it. Read the tone instead. If she wrote with a grin, the joke is the signal. If she wrote with real heat, she may want a real opinion back, and a shrug will read as bored.

Look at what she left open. A claim about cereal with no mention of which cereal or why gives you a gap, and the gap is the invitation. You can fill it with your own pick, a defense of the cereal she might be attacking, or a question about why she feels so strongly. Any of those keeps the thread alive. Ignoring the bit entirely tells her you are not going to be fun to talk to.

One useful shape is the counter-claim: take a clear, slightly outrageous position of your own and let her push back. It shows you have an opinion and gives her something to argue with. The message should be short, one clear stance, with no hedging, so she can tell you are joking but committed.

A second shape is the curious push: accept her claim and ask the one question that makes her explain the reasoning behind it. That works when her opinion sounds like it has a story attached. Keep it to a single question so the answer is easy to give and fun to write.

A third shape is the light tease that quotes her back to herself. It works when she has said something a little self-important. It should be affectionate, specific to her words, and short enough that she can laugh and reply in kind. Avoid anything that makes her the target of a real jab. The moment a tease lands as a dig, the conversation turns defensive.

A reply sent within a few hours of her match reads as interested. Sending it at 2am reads as either lonely or careless, so if you see the message late, hold it until morning and send it while it still makes sense as a response. The point is to look attentive without looking desperate, so a reply in daylight matters more than a reply fast.

If she answers, match her pace. Short message, short reply. Give her a question or a stance to respond to each time so the thread does not stall. If she replies with one word or nothing, leave it. Waiting two days before a second message is normal. If the second message gets no response either, let it go and move on, because a silent match after two real attempts is her answer.