Online Dating, That First Telephone Call

Once you have made contact with someone through email that you think shows some promise, it’s time to think about the next step. Once you feel comfortable with someone in email and possibly in chat, it’s time for a phone conversation.
Is it really important to talk on the phone before you meet? Some people think it is, some people think it isn’t. It’s a good idea just because it is one more process that you can use to weed out someone before you are trapped on a date with that person.

You may have gotten wonderful romantic emails from this person but you don’t know how long it took that person to write the emails, or even if they wrote the emails or if someone else wrote them instead. It’s easy to sound witty and clever and romantic in an email.

When you are talking on the phone with a person, you can tell if that person has decent social skills and can carry on a conversation. The other person may have spent hours writing the emails that turned your head, but when you talk to that person and have a real conversation, you will know if the person is really as funny and witty and clever as the emails made him or her seem.

Talking on the phone will also help you get a better sense of what the other person is really like. It’s difficult to decide if you want to date someone based only on words on a screen. You need to hear the other person’s voice and how they speak in order to know if you’re really interested in meeting them.

, talking on the phone gives you a chance to be more comfortable with that person before you meet for the first time. If someone really wants to meet you but doesn’t want to talk on the phone, it might be a red flag that the person is a bully or worse.

It’s your choice whether you want to talk on the phone with a potential date before meeting him or her in real life but many online dating experts agree that it’s a good idea for many reasons.

So once you have emailed a few times and you feel like there is potential with a particular person, email that person and ask him or her If they agree it’s time for that first phone call and set up a “phone date.”