I Got Her Number: Now What? – The Joy of Text

If there’s one thing that guys obsess upon, it’s the “getting the girl’s number”. Let’s say that you’ve impressed the girl at the party/bookstore/gym/mall/what-have-you with your looks, charm, wit or Audi R8. Now you’re walking back to your friends holding up that napkin with the most coveted of prizes: her digits! Score! Mission accomplished! She totally digs you! It’s all smooth sailing from here, right?

Wrong.

One of my jobs here at Paging Dr. NerdLove is – sadly – to vigorously stomp on some of your most fondly held dreams when those dreams and delusions are holding you back. And so, allow me to apply the hobnailed boot of reality upside your head. Just getting her number means absolutely nothing. She may like you and wants to hear back from you. Or she may have given you a number just to make you go away. Hell, it may even really be her number… but she’s never going to actually take your call.

In the days of cellphones, voice mail and caller ID, a phone number is an absolutely meaningless trophy when it comes to meeting women. Just because she didn’t give you the number for the local cement processing factory doesn’t mean that you’re ever going to hear back from her. If you want to make sure that getting her number leads to an actual date in the future, you have to understand phone game.

Getting Her Number

Obviously, before any of this comes in to play, you have to get her number in the first place… and be assured that she’s actually going to respond.  A general rule of thumb is that the longer you’re talking to a girl, the better the odds are that it’s a solid number; if she gives you her number within the first five to ten minutes it’s likely that either she gives her number out to a lot of people or that she’s giving you the brush-off without having to be direct. If it’s within twenty to thirty minutes, it’s probably far more likely to actually respond when you try to get ahold of her. Similarly, if she’s willing to move around with you – to another section of the book store, back to the bar to grab a drink, to a quieter section of the party where you can talk – it’s a strong indicator that not only is she interested, but that she trusts you… and therefor she’s more likely to pick up when you call after getting her number.

"No, it's Brad. Braaaad. You know, we met at Pure on Friday night, you spilled your Appletini on me and I told you that... hello?"

Time and social context makes a difference here too; the rules of meeting women during the day versus at night and on weekends are different. During the day, there are usually legitimate time constraints that will keep girls from hanging out with you for a half-hour; you may get the number sooner and she’ll still respond, but it may well take longer to get her to actually meet with you in person.

The best way to get her number isn’t to just ask for it, nor is it to say “Hey, we should hang out some time” or “I want to continue this conversation later”. The best way is to make specific plans for a date. Besides creating a context where she will be expecting to hear from you, you will also be weeding out potential flakes; any girl who says “Well, I dunno…” or “Call me the day of,” or indicates that the day may not be the best for her without suggesting another day is someone who’s likely going to flake on you and you will be well rid of them.

The Intimacy Ladder

When it comes to women and dating, you have to understand that there are levels of intimacy when it comes to communication. From most intimate to least, it goes:

• In Person
• Phone
• Text
• E-mail
• Instant Message
• Facebook¹

Obviously you want to be moving up the intimacy ladder as quickly as possible. Dropping down a level – she only responds to your voice mails with texts, for example – is generally a sign that you’ve screwed up somewhere along the way. If this is a regular pattern, it’s an indication that you’re now in damage control mode and the odds are good that you’re not actually going to see this girl any time in the near future. Similarly if the two of you have been texting back and forth and she starts to call you instead, it’s a very good sign.

So remember to keep aware of where your interactions are on the intimacy ladder and keep trying to move upwards… after all, the sex doesn’t happen until you’re actually meeting up in person.

The Power Of The Text Message

The text message is a surprisingly versatile and powerful tool in the arsenal of any man who’s looking for dates. It’s one of the best ways to establish communication with girls you’ve just met – as well as confirming that you have a working, valid number. You can use it to build comfort or intrigue in order to help get her excited and eager to meet with you face-to-face. You can use it to maintain a connection with a girl you’ve been seeing or one you’re trying to see but circumstances are getting in the way. You can use it to re-establish communication with a girl when things have suddenly gone quiet, even after weeks or months of inactivity. And it can be used to bypass women’s inhibitions and build momentum towards sex.

You see, text messages provide a layer of distance between you and the person you’re talking to. This level of detachment allows for people to step outside of their public roles or personas and adopt ones that they would never cop to in public. You’re mutually agreeing, in effect, that these texts are not “real” and therefore anything goes. Once you’ve gotten more used to talking to girls and mastering phone game and texting, you’ll be amazed at just how easy it can be to go from basic teasing and flirting to surprisingly intense sexual topics and role-play. I have set up dates and hook-ups with girls I had met while out solely via text, just by escalating the sexual nature of our texts back and forth.

Man, I had no idea you could do that with a Zima bottle!

But before you ever worry about that, you need to know the basics of text and text game.