It means 1 of 2 things. Either he wants back in and is checking if the door still opens, or he is bored tonight and checking that you are still there.
Both start with the same 2 words. There is no question in it, so it is a door, not an answer. It is the standard opener of a zombieing text: a feeling, or not even that, with no ask attached. The answer is higher up in your thread — the last thing he said before he went quiet.
Free to try. We never store your chats.
Look it up and you get a list: he misses you, he is bored, he is flirting, he wants you back. Every item is true for somebody. None of them tells you which one he is.
"Hey stranger" is built to be light. It lets the person sending it risk nothing. That is why those 2 words tell you less than almost any other text, and why staring at them does not help.
Scroll up to where the talking stopped. Read the last 2 or 3 messages.
From an ex, or from someone who disappeared. From an ex, it is closer to a try at reconnecting. From someone who stopped texting in a talking stage, it is often a way back in without having to explain the gap.
When he sent it. 11:40pm, soft opening, nothing asked. That is the cheapest text a person can send. It does not mean it is fake. It means he has not put much on the table yet.
What he sends next. If a second message comes with something real in it, like "i've been thinking about how things ended", that says more than "hey stranger" ever will.
Do not put him on trial in line 1. "oh so NOW you text me" feels fair, and it closes the door before you find out which of the 2 it was. Do not pour 7 weeks into 1 message either.
Send something small that is easy to answer. Something like: hey. how have you been?
That costs you the least and lets him show how deep he wants to go. You pick how wide the door opens. If you want it wider, add 1 true line about you. If you want to know why he texted, you can ask that too, just not as the first thing.
His reply tells you the rest. A real answer means he came to talk. A 1-word reply and then nothing means it was a bored night, and you found out with 1 short text.
A "hey stranger" does not need an answer tonight, and it does not need one at all.
You paste the thread and it reads "hey stranger" on top of him rather than a list: how it ended, how he usually opens, what he leaves out, and when he sends.
Then it writes the reply in 4 tones, from light to direct, and tells you if the better move today is to wait.
Try it on your conversation