Call me

In case anyone is wondering, Index Card Guy did call, and we are currently engaged in the ever-popular game of phone tag. Apparently he adheres not to that three-day rule made maddeningly standard by the film Swingers, but to an even more casual five-day rule instead. This is all good and fine; five days is still well within the realm of acceptable follow-up time as far as I'm concerned, but in discussing the unwritten standards and usual patterns for this sort of thing with some friends this week, I got to thinking about other first phone calls in my dating life and the timeline, script, and circumstances of each. Here are five of them... the good, the bad, and the absurd.


Five memorable first (and, in some cases, last) calls from men

1. Troy (March 1999) - Even though I just said that five days post-meeting is a perfectly reasonable time to call a woman, I still can't help feeling it is on the outer edge of acceptable, just barely on this side of "disinterested and lazy." Back in 1999, however, with much less dating experience to my name, my standards were maybe a bit looser. Had that not been the case, I am not sure I would have accepted a date from a guy who called me three months after receiving my number. If he hadn't been a friend of my sister's, I sort of doubt I would even have remembered who he was. As it turns out, it wouldn't have been a great loss. My one (two-part) date with Troy is documented here, by the way. Our one uneventful phone call is not.
   
   
2. Jimmy (March 2001) - If Troy wins the award for most belated phone call, Jimmy without a doubt gets the award for promptest call. Something clicked between us immediately while chatting in the coat check line after a concert. Only later did he tell me that his friends had actually handed him his coat about four minutes into our conversation but that he had stayed in line all the way to the front anyway, just to keep talking to me. He called me the next day, approximately ten hours after our meeting, and left what I still think was a ridiculously sweet message [in a tone of voice that I wish I could convey properly in print], saying, "I know I just met you, like... ten hours ago, and I probably should have waited a while to call you, but... I just really wanted to call you, so, um, I hope you want to call me back..." It really is a shame that he was a pothead with a Peter Pan complex, because I still sometimes think that one should have worked out differently than it did.
   
   
3. Brian (January 2001) - Brian was a one-date boy documented here as well, but what I didn't talk about in that post was his first phone call to me. He called me at work (since, as I mentioned last week, handing out business cards to potential suitors was at one point my norm), but when he did so, he pretended to be a recruiter who had found my resume online. Points for originality, I suppose, but frankly, it annoyed me more than it charmed me (which, now that I think about it, sort of sums up my thoughts about him after our one date as well).
   
   
4. Kris (December 1999) - I'll admit that sometimes, when I call someone, I am hoping for voicemail. This is generally the rule when I have some quick info to convey or some sort of brief response to provide. When I'm looking to get to know someone and make plans, however, I recognize fully that it's better just to reach the person live. Kris must not have thought so, however, as his first phone call (to what he knew was my home number) came at 2:00 in the afternoon, despite the fact that he was well aware I had a day job. Apparently he wanted to toss the proverbial ball directly into my court. What he forgot was that I had a roommate who was in grad school (and therefore home at sporadic hours during the day), and that my roommate would tell me exactly what time he called and exactly how surprised and thrown off guard he was when someone actually answered the phone. I later realized that Kris was an idiot in many, many ways. I didn't even need the first phone call as a cue.
   
   
5. What's-his-name (sometime in 1999 or 2000) - I don't remember this guy's name, and since we didn't ever go on a date, I probably needn't include him in the list. The details are still funny to me, though, so I'm including him anyway. I met this guy at a friend's bachelorette party in a city five hours from my home. I do not remember why I gave him my card except that he had given me his (and had been swapping cards with others in our group, too, seemingly for no other reason than that we were all relatively new to professional business card-toting positions and it therefore was for some reason the thing to do). He didn't call me after that event (I never expected him to), but he did call about five months later, with a line that went something like this, "I found your card in my wallet, and I see that you work in St. Paul, and I'm just trying to figure out who you are or how I know you..." He told me that he was planning to move to the Twin Cities so when he found my card he figured he'd get in touch with someone living in the area. After a few details about himself, I finally figured out who he was and how he had my card, but I didn't let on to him that I remembered. My foolish pride decided, I guess, that if I weren't worth remembering to him, he should be similarly unmemorable to me. I basically said, "Sorry, dude; I don't know why you have my card," and I never heard from him again.

You know, when I started this list, I really thought more than one of them might be a nice memory. I have been called by men I liked; really I swear I have. I guess that, as with so many dating-related tales, however, the bad ones are almost invariably more interesting.