From Chat to Phone to Meet

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2005
From Chat to Phone to Meet
10
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 7:52am
I have been chatting with a new guy for a week and I wanted to move to the phone. He is new to OLD and said he didn't want to come off as forward or pushy for my number. We finally exchanged numbers and yesterday he called and left a message while I was at work.
I returned the call later that night. Conversation went smoothly. We were talking for over an hour.(Long Distance-even though he is 35 miles away)
He said he was happy to finally hear my voice. We ended the talk and he asked if we can chat again the next night at 8. (Like we have been doing) I replied "You can call me".
Now, this is where I'm not comfortable. I don't want to just chat, but would like a phone call as well. I remember last summer chatting/phoning a guy for a week and he flaked out on meeting. I don't want to make the same mistake. And don't want my phone bill to go up either.
I suppose he is expecting me online tonight, but would like some advice on how to get him to phone me if he is "into me". Or should I just miss the online chat and wait for him to call?
What would be a good time frame from moving from chat,phone to meet? And what would be a good way to tell him that it's best to meet in person to see if we even want to continue chatting/phone?
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-14-2003
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 8:46am

You told him to phone you, not IM you, so you aren't obligated to be online at 8PM. Your comment should make it pretty clear that you aren't interested in on-line chatting at this point. Some men prefer to stay on the computer endlessly and never meet. Men that insist on IM rather than the phone might have this problem.

Long distance calls currently run about $0.05 per minute in the US. Dating costs money. I would budget a few dollars a month for phone calls. Your calls should never really last more than 10-15 minutes, since this is really about dating not phone conversations. If this man is not up for a face-to-face meeting in the next few days then he probably isn't serious about a real relationship.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-08-2005
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 12:40pm

I agree with the previous post - keep your telephone conversations relatively brief, regardless of how much it costs.

It sounds like the two of you are ready to meet in person. You could ask him if he'd like to meet, hint that you'd like to meet, or you could wait for him to ask you.

It's best to get the first meet in as soon as possible.

You don't have to be online at 8pm. You told him that if he'd like to get in touch with you, that he should call you.

Meade

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 1:20pm

I agree with the other posters...you asked him to call, so if he wants to talk to you he should call. I wouldn't be online tonight if I were you.

And I agree that talking for an hour on the phone prior to meeting isn't a good idea. I generally talk for about 15-20 minutes to get a sense of his personality and whether it lines up with my perception of him from his profile and emails, and if I get a good vibe (and if he's not asking), I just say something like, "well, would you like to meet for a cup of coffee and see if we connect in person?" 9 times out of 10, that works.

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2005
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 3:30pm
Thanks for your opinions. I will take it and not be online tonight. If he calls then I will ask about meeting up for coffee over the weekend.
It's just lately, it feels that guys don't really want to persue. More like they just want the attention from a woman. Any woman. Many women.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2001
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 3:48pm

It seems to me the natural progression of things is to talk on the phone after talking online for so long. That's not to say that you won't continue to talk online even after you've had some phone chats. What trips me up is the "assumption" that if you start talking on the phone, that that means he wants to meet (within a reasonable amount of time). My last online guy messaged me almost daily and we did have a couple phone calls (the last of which I had hoped he'd talk about meeting, he didn't).

What confused me even more about him was the fact that he gave me both his cell and home phone numbers and "said" he'd programmed mine into his cell phone. Big deal..he called me once and I called him once. That was it. Our conversations both online & on the phone had been really good up to that point. Then he was not online for several days...seemed to be totally missing in action, so when he finally was online, I inquired where he'd been. He acted like it was no big deal that he hadn't been online. I referenced the fact that we had talked almost everyday online for 2 weeks. Said he'd been "busy" with work and his sons. We continued to talk, and the conversation seemed to be going better afterwards, at which point I did mention when we would ever meet each other. His answer? "I totally freeze up in person." I told him that I found that hard to believe, but looking back, I should have said, then WHY do you have a profile on Match.com? Supposedly he had cancelled his subscription, but his profile is still on there. Maybe he isn't paying anymore, but I bet you anything he still does the searches and probably does yahoo as well. That's well and good, but again, it seems to be getting harder to decide very early on which guys are truly interested in meeting and which ones aren't.

I'm to the point where I almost wished I had found out more info about some past online guys and what they were seeking by even being on a dating site if they made no effort or had no desire to meet. I don't need more "chat buddies" as one guy called it. Maybe it's best this last guy & I didn't meet if he doesn't have the balls to ever face someone. Mixed signals give a very bad impression of someone--that's why I don't do well with the game-playing that is so common with OLD.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2005
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 7:53am

Well, you know Misty that's what really frustrates me. It happened last summer. I chat/talked to a guy for a week. All went great. And we planned to meet on a monday and I waited for him to call with the exact location and never heard from him again.
I felt like I wasted a week with this guy.

No call from the guy, but he was online. I wasn't. He emailed me telling he missed me online and would like to talk again. I sent a short email telling him to give me a call when he gets next week schedule and we should make plans for a short meet on one of his days off. I'll have to just wait and see.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-14-2003
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 10:15am

"It's just lately, it feels that guys don't really want to persue. More like they just want the attention from a woman. Any woman. Many women."

Yes, you have hit the nail on the head. Many people enjoy a personal connection through email and IM. But when it comes time to go out for a date then it takes time, money and effort. Perhaps they implied they had a little more money or were a little better looking or were a little more polite in their emails than what was actually true. They also know that once face to face they might be judged.

So they enjoy the personal communication through email and IM, where they can say whatever they want, make up whatever they want and be whomever they wish. As long as you are returning their correspondance then you are giving them exactly what they desire.

The easiest way out of this trap is to request a meeting after a few emails and calls. If they decline then move on. The older you get the more that you will see this situation.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-17-2003
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 9:42pm

Hi! there

I agree with most of the posting. from email to chat to on phone, it is very easy. When comes to meeting someone that you don't know, you know him online really well. You don't really know the person until you spend time with that person

Pizza

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-07-2005
Sat, 11-19-2005 - 12:23am

I have found that many guys who like to mainly IM, really don't like to meet in person, well of the ones I've chatted with. When you try to get them to commit to an exact meeting date, they come up with some excuse. So I think they are great at making themselves appear interesting and have probably fabricated a more interesting life than what they actually have. They are probably not very good looking in real life and maybe have someone else's picture up on their profile. Those may be some reasons why they are afraid to meet in real life! So they continue to have their relationships through chatting through IM and hiding behind a keyboard.

I am doing OLD to find a person to share my life with eventually, so anyone who isn't interested in meeting shortly, I just let them fade away. To me OLD is a venue for meeting more people than I would otherwise have had the opportunity to meet, not a way to make more chat buddies. Plus I have found that many guys who do IM, especially at night, are just looking for casual sex, which I'm not. So I rarely IM anymore. Wink, couple of emails, phone, meet.

I generally do a few short emails back and forth, then suggest talking on the phone (cell only never home phones). I like to hear their voices and how they talk because it helps me to know if I want to continue onto meeting or not. Then if we seem to click talking (I keep it rather short less than 10 to 20 minutes), then I suggest meeting and if they hesitate then I drop it and move on. I'm not going to talk anyone into meeting - they have to want it also! I know sometimes things come up and meetings have to be re-arranged, but if this happens more than twice I say bye. Generally I try to meet within 2 weeks time or less from the first wink.

Many OLD guys say or act like they are interested in having a relationship and are looking for one, but in reality I don't think all are. I want someone that has time for a lady in their lives, or will make time for one. So many of these guys though are set in their ways and expect a lady to bend around their lives completely and do all the compromising, while the guy's lives remain the exact same. So I'm still holding out hope I can find a good guy!

Maybe you could just say you want to take this to the next stage and meet and see what he says. If he says ok then suggest maybe two days and ask which is better for him. Good luck to you.

Sunshine

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2005
Tue, 11-22-2005 - 6:14pm
Just an update: He called me both on Saturday & Sunday and we have our first meet tomorrow afternoon. If the weather permits. It's been snowing all day and will throughout the week. But so far it's still on.