Making the First Phone Call after Meeting Online

You have your heart in your throat and your knees feel like jelly! Finally you’ve reached that stage where you’ve known each other for quite some time, exchanging messages with e-mails and online chatting. Now, the next stage is for both of you to talk on the phone. You are so excited to hear his/her voice. What would you talk about?

Some tips:

• Stay cool. Even with your hands sweating and your heart thumping a mile a minute, try to relax. Otherwise your voice will be one inaudible raspy tone. Breathe deeply to relax the tension in your voice.
• Be natural.  It’s understandable that you get excited. But don’t show off, just be your great natural self.
• The first thing to say after the customary hello should still be to introduce yourself to make things clear that it is you who is on the other line.
• When the conversation is on, make it as it were online. Give some compliments that it had been a nice to be calling each other after all the online e-mails and chat.
• Talk as if it was a continuation of your chat. Do not be very formal, and neither should you talk as if you have known each other for a long, long time. Of course, you have discussed things online but your first phone conversation is a bit similar to starting anew since this stage is about hearing how your voices sound which is much like short of meeting each other.
• Your first phone call should be limited to a few minutes; perhaps fifteen minutes should be ideal. Avoid discussing serious things. That will come in subsequent phone calls; this time, talk about general things.
• Some online daters reported that their first phone conversation lasted long. It would depend on both of you. But as a rule, be on the safe side until you are sure that attraction is mutual.
• Neither is this the time to talk about setting up your first date. Accustom yourself to hearing each other’s voices first. Your voice is the next thing to knowing the whole package of yourself.
• Lower your level of expectations. That way you lower your disappointment too. Voices have a way of reflecting the personality of a person so in a sense both of you are getting closer to meeting for real.
• Since your first phone call is like laying the groundwork for your real meeting in person, make it light, pleasant and fun. Remember some funny things you have enjoyed discussing online and laugh at it together.                                             
• You may talk about the weather or anything that you have pleasantly discussed online. Make some clean jokes to put each other at ease.
• Your first phone call is like a dry run to when you actually meet each other on a date. If the conversation flows pleasant and comfortable, then probably you have hit it off nicely. But if it isn’t, it doesn’t mean that all is lost.
• It would depend on both of you if you would now prefer the phone to chatting online. If that would be the case, schedule your next phone conversation as regular as when you were dating online.
• It would depend now if you would still want to be calling each other on the phone. Before you each hang up, schedule the next phone call. Your subsequent phone conversations will determine if you would be willing to meet in person.