Seriously, who gives out their number anymore?

I remember having a drunken bonding moment with a really cool guy in college a few years ago, and he asked for my number. I asked for his screen name instead. I mean, IM-ing someone is so much more casual, and so much less stressful. You don’t have to feel your heart thumping through your chest as the phone rings. Is he going to answer? Is it going to go to voicemail? Is he blocking me? What do I say if he picks up?

With IM, you can see if he’s away or idle, and choose your own adventure from there. You can leave a casual “Just wanted to say I had a great time last night” IM, rather than starting a phone call with the same line and then struggling to make small talk. Likewise, you can make small talk behind the shield of the IM window, where he can’t hear your voice crack, and where you can copy and paste the whole convo to all of your girlfriends and get advice while you try to weed out his intentions.

And then came Facebook. The social network has made quite the mark on the dating scene. There’s the poke, which can be viewed as casual, flirty, or creepy. There’s the “it’s complicated” label for the relationship you’re in (finally- you can be open about having a f*ck buddy without warding off the rest of the male population!); and of course, there’s the wall post, which makes the casual IM seem like the awkward phone call of yesteryear. Read More »

[Read the second installment HERE]

A few days later, I received a friendly e-mail from Jack. He informed me that I’d be hearing from an internal HR recruiter in the next couple of days. I also noticed that he was now available for chat on my Gmail account.

“No harm in that, right?” I asked Jason.

“Sure. Who cares?” He replied.

So after I heard from the recruiter, Jack and I chatted here and there – nothing special or even personal, just friendly banter about this and that. But things quickly took on a different tone, although subtle, I began to wonder about Jack’s motives. He was ecstatic when he found out that Liz, the HR recruiter, had called me. As soon as I told him over chat, our “chat conversation” proceeded as such:

Jack: digits? your digits?!? also may i suggest that you wear a highly professional business suit for the occasion?

me: why do you want to call? and of course i’ll wear a professional suit, silly!

Jack: what do you mean why??? i wanna talk about this over the phone!

me: ok. . . sorry

Before I had a chance to turn my head away from my computer monitor, my cell phone cried BZZZ! BZZZ! BZZZZ!

“So what’s up?” Read More »