When it comes to dating, and especially in the early stages of seeing someone, your cellphone can be your good friend allowing you to be in touch with the person you like and show how much you care about them, but it can also be a major enemy making you come across as lacking in basic etiquette or even lame to anyone who has standards and expectations from the people they would be interested in dating or having a long-term relationship with.
Here are three common bad habits, which are not mentioned as often, that both men and women are guilty of, which can be a serious turn-offs:
1. Returning a call with a text message.
Unless you know each other relatively well already and established good communication, returning a voice-mail with a text message is a bad idea. Imagine a common scenario, where the guy meets a girl, gets her phone number, calls her a day or two later, and she, instead of calling him back, sends him some kind of weak text message – i.e. “how is your day going” or “thanks for calling”. What is he supposed to say to that?
2. Not leaving a voicemail.
This terrible habit seems to be spreading around rapidly. It’s perfectly appropriate to expect a close friend who you talk to every day or several times a day to see your missed call and call you back and not burden them with multiple voicemails. However, when it comes to someone you recently met, not leaving a voice message when you call and relying on the missed call feature is nothing other than lame.
3. Keeping your cellphone on the table while being out on a date.
Although many people wouldn’t care whether you keep your phone on the table during your date, if you are having dinner, or coffee, having your phone on the table is also a bad idea, as it suggests that you can’t give your date undivided attention and you expect or at least leave the possibility of being interrupted by a phone call. Unless you are on some kind of standby at work or an on-call nurse or a fire fighter, there is no reason for you to keep your phone out.
@ Justin. They say that it’s proper to leave your phone number in the beginning of your message in general, so that if a person doesn’t want to listen to the message and just call you back, they don’t have to listen to the message the end. It’s absolutely appropriate to leave your tel number on a voicemail to someone who never spoke with you on the phone before or only spoke with you once and you are not sure whether he/she has your number, and it’s the only right thing to do. But if you have been talking/texting, then leaving your tel number on a message would sound kind of redundant and geeky.
Whenever I call people, for business or pleasure, I always end my voice message with saying my phone number. Is this a wise thing to do or do you think its just unnecessary? I’m an old fashioned type of person is some regards and I know that classical gestures are always a nice thing to do with people in general. But is ending the phone message, with providing my phone number, to a girl a bit too unnecessary or do you think its a nice touch?