20-40-60 Etiquette...Text or Call?

YOU ASK! WE ANSWER! YOU DECIDE!

QUESTION: Is it OK for a guy to text you to ask you out on a date? When should you pick up the phone and actually call?

CALLIE’S ANSWER: ALWAYS pick up the phone and actually call. You’re asking someone out for a date! There is a time and a place to text someone. Texting is so easy, but not very personal. Be a man and pick up the phone! Leave a message if he/she doesn’t answer.

LILLIE-BETH’S ANSWER: Text messaging is a great tool for conveying information quickly to someone with whom you already have a relationship. It is not a substitute for real communication, although it has some advantages. For one, it’s easy and a fun way to flirt and connect briefly with a boyfriend or girlfriend during busy days.

However, with texting, as in e-mail, people don’t always pick up on the same tone, humor, sarcasm or meaning that you intend. Also, texting can be a barrier to a true relationship by making you feel like you have one when really all you have are words and short sentences being sent back and forth between unseen people.

Deborrah Cooper, the dating expert and online advice columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, contends that setting up a date via text “is bogus.”

“Have the courage to speak up and risk rejection like a big boy or girl,” Cooper wrote. “One of the top qualities singles seek is a confident partner that goes after what he or she wants.”

HELEN’S ANSWER: Call your date! Unless you are so creative that your text message would be so outstanding that he/she would never refuse the opportunity to go out with you.

Seriously, the all- important communication for getting together for a date and/or relationship should be by phone. And I think the reason for that argument is that every time you talk to someone you learn a little more about that person and if you are texting, the opportunity for getting to know him better is not there. If he/she does text you, then you could pick up the phone and call him/her back to answer. Person to person by telephone is much more friendly and intimate.