pantsfarm

I feel pretty silly for even thinking about this as much as I have already.

When I go and do social things, a lot of the time I will end up meeting somebody and we’ll be talking and at some point they will suggest that we exchange phone numbers or something. Generally in such a case I will offer my number and shortly thereafter they will call it. I will save the number and a few weeks later I will go through my phone and delete all the names I can’t recognize – chiefly the people who I got one call from when they got my number and then never heard from again.

So why is it that all of these number exchanges are ultimately so fruitless? Am I just remembering this incorrectly, and in fact I have called a lot more of these people back than I am admitting here and to myself? I don’t think so, but I guess I’m not really sure.

If somebody asks for my number I’m not about to lie or give some excuse for why I can’t or won’t give it out. I can’t very well suggest “if you need to get in touch with me we obviously have mutual friends, ask them for my number” because that would send a very clear “please only consider getting in touch with me if you really really want to” which they of course will not because we’ve only just met.

I should clarify that all of this idle thought is gender neutral because in cases where I am actively soliciting girls’ numbers I am inevitably faced with the decision to call or not call and that is a decision I am usually comfortable making.

But returning to the general case of numbers of people I am not interested in sleeping with (eg met at a poker game or talked to at some gallery or a friend of a friend while out) – why is there never, or so rarely, a call later?

Of course I must consider for myself, why do I never call them? Presumably whatever reasons I have for not calling are the same as theirs… but maybe not because I am not usually the one initiating number exchanges?

Perhaps it is because it is nice to have the numbers of people if I should come up with a good reason to call later, and it is less troublesome than having to ask a mutual friend how to get in touch later. And there might not even be a mutual friend, I guess.

I don’t know. I don’t take it personally but have no real insight on this, so, I unceremoniously delete another handful of numbers from my phone. Alternatively, I could get a phone that is not older than my duration in China and doesn’t have such a tediously low limit (feels like approximately 4) on how many numbers it can store. On second thought, it’s kind of like people I meet once, add as a friend on facebook, send one message and promptly forget about.