Hung up on phone calls

By Tamar Caspi Shnall

In this day and age it’s hard not to make a phone call. I accidentally call people all the time when I forget to lock the keypad on my cell phone. Still, I get more e-mails from women asking why men don’t call than any other type of question or complaint.
If you’re at a Jewish singles event or on J*Date and ask someone for their phone number, then why wouldn’t you use it? You’re both there, which means you’re both single and looking, and both took the time to make sure you looked your best and spent time talking to each other. So why no phone call? An obvious answer: He was asking you for your phone number as a way to end the conversation. Alas, that is not an explanation most women think of or want to accept. Is it possible his conquest was complete after getting the digits? Could be. Did he suddenly suffer a case of amnesia? Doubtful. Maybe he dropped his phone into a cup of water while he was hugging someone and lost all his numbers? Shockingly, this is an actual excuse I once heard. Or could it be his ex-girlfriend was at the event, got jealous watching him talk to an attractive woman, realized she still had feelings for him and now they’re back together? Again, it’s happened to me, but this one is a rarity. Who really knows? Women are left to ponder the possibilities for endless eternity.
An even worse scenario: He already made the first phone call to ask you out; now you’re on a great date, had a really nice kiss at the end of the night, he told you he’d call you … and then nothing. ­Really? Don’t be that guy. Come on, call if you say you’re going to call, otherwise don’t say you’re going to call. It’s simple. One excuse I hear from men is that women like to talk a lot and they don’t want to get stuck talking on the phone forever. Instead, they’d rather text or instant-message. If you really like someone, then take the time and make the effort to place a phone call. It doesn’t have to be a long one. You can even start off the conversation by saying you’re busy but want to make plans to get together. But no, men would rather text “what r u up 2?” Seriously? You’re going to ask a girl out via text message? This has happened to the majority of my friends, and more often than you’d think.
A text or instant-message does not take the place of a phone call. Period.
Women are not innocent. We are just as guilty about not returning phone calls. Sometimes we’ll give a man our phone number just to get the guy to go away — sound familiar? So when the phone rings and we don’t recognize the number on the caller ID, we let it go to voicemail and then never return the call. It’s not nice and it’s just as bad as not making the phone call to begin with.
If you like someone, it doesn’t matter how busy you are at work, how sick your grandmother is or where you’re traveling. You can make up any excuse in the book, but the simple fact is, if you were interested you would call, and if we were interested we’d call back. Once you can grasp that concept, dating will get a whole lot easier.
Tamar Caspi Shnall recently married a Dallasite but has 15 years’ worth of dating advice to share! If you have any dating dilemmas, you can e-mail her at: thesearchforbeshert@gmail.com.