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You meet a guy, and you’re impressed with him for the most part. He’s handsome. He’s smart. He’s got a decent job and a great sense of humor, but what he doesn’t have, is a grasp of the importance of picking up the phone to call you. Texting is fine–when you want quick information. But when we’re talking about connecting with another individual on a deeper level, texting can be a long, drawn-out process that can make getting to know someone too much work.

I think we’ve all dealt with this guy at one time or another: He can send you either incessantly long text messages to see what you’re up to and how you’re doing, or he’ll send you a short message that drives you insane and leaves you to do all the hard work (examples include, “sup?” or the always hated, “Hey”). And while texting does seem to be the mode of interaction that many people are most comfortable with nowadays, it’s very impersonal, and can get annoying.

I dealt with a guy like this in the past. I thought my dating life was going to be a scene out of Sex and the City when I moved to NYC, but instead, I was left with a dude who lived too far out from me (he was in the Bronx), sending me text messages at the most inopportune times, talking about, “hey there.” That was it. He was incapable of speaking in detail about things, instead, he waited for me to make the conversation even though I was trying to finish my work. I could have told him that he needed to call me (and at a more convenient time), but I wasn’t feeling him via text or in person, so we didn’t continue the dating process and we didn’t need to do anything verbal over the phone. Nice talking to you. Or not.

On the other hand, I have a girlfriend who just won’t deal with men like this at all. She gives them a few chances to man up and do the old-school thing of dialing her number to actually get to know her, but when a week or two goes by and they haven’t done so, she stops answering their messages altogether. And while our male friends always look at her crazy because they don’t think she gives the guys a good enough chance, she stands firm on her belief that grown arse men shouldn’t be afraid to converse over the phone.

That all makes sense, but then I realize, she has never said whether or not she told the guys she was interacting with that they needed to call her. It was almost like something she assumed they would catch on to and attempt. But alas, men like to say that they can’t read minds, and man, they are NOT playing (And they don’t really try hard enough to if you ask me).

So yeah, the lack of real verbal communication relayed between men and women can be annoying, but I often wonder if we are being too hard on men with this. Many people have found themselves crippled socially by a dependence on social media and technology, to the point that they assume all parties involved in an evolving…thing…would prefer to chat via text, iMessage, What’sApp, or whatever messaging application you use. In my mind, the best way to deal with this issue if you’re actually interested in getting to know a guy is to just say what’s on your mind. Ask him to call instead of thinking that he should know what you want, and reiterate the importance of it to you if he says he’s a little leery of calling. Hey, some people are awkward. If he doesn’t follow this, then you have the right to move on from him. But before you gripe and cut off a guy completely, just make sure you’re being vocal. As they say, ‘Closed mouths don’t get fed.’

But how do you deal with dudes who can’t seem to pick up the phone? When is it a problem and how do you resolve it?

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