Messaging here uses curated quick messages: warm, ready-made lines you pick from, instead of a free-text keyboard. That is by design.
Conversations on EverConnected are meant to happen on the call, voice to voice. Messages exist to greet, plan and reschedule, not to become the relationship. It also means nobody can send you something hurtful, and there is no pressure to compose the perfect opener. What you cannot type, you never have to worry about; message content is the product's own phrasing, not private prose.
The message box appears once you and your match have both accepted. Until then the thread shows who you are waiting for.