There has always been a huge amount of confusion regarding getting a woman’s phone number during online dating. I always assumed that this confusion would eventually clear itself up, as men learned the difference between real-life game and online dating.
Alas, I was wrong. The confusion persists. In some ways, it’s actually become worse due to the increased number of methods one can use to communicate. Today I’ll do my best to clear all of this up.
The Classic Problem

-By Caleb Jones

The “classic” phone number problem with online dating was when guys would attempt to ask a girl for her phone number during a conversation with her over the dating site or app. Sometimes this works, but more often than not it results in a woman ghosting or throwing up a bunch of ASD shields.

In The Ultimate Online Dating Manual I talk about exactly why this happens. For various reasons, some rational and some not, when you’re a woman, giving out your phone number to some random stranger on the internet is actually more threatening and scary than actually scheduling a date with the guy, flirting with a guy, or even doing a little dirty sex talk with a guy.We could have a long discussion about the reasoning behind this behavior, whether or not it makes any sense, and so on. But as always, instead of having a long, detailed, and ultimately irrelevant psychological/philosophical nerd discussion about why women do certain things, I’d rather just acknowledge that women behave in certain ways in the real world and discuss what you need to do when these things happen so you can get from zero to sex as quickly as possible.
The reasons so many men ask for women’s phone numbers online usually fall into two categories:

1. They’re inexperienced betas and don’t know any other way of closing the deal.

2. They’re experienced Alpha Males or even PUAs with a lot of daygame or night game experience who have been trained that getting the “number close” is of paramount importance. Which it is when you’re doing real-life cold approach.
But as these very guys like to often scream about, online dating isn’t real-life cold approach. Some of the rules are different. Not all, but some.
One of these rules is that generally speaking (and of course there are always exceptions to the rule, and these exceptions prove the rule), you will get better statistical results from online dating if you actually pitch and schedule the first meet before you exchange phone numbers or other contact information.I know that sounds counter-intuitive, especially if you’re coming from the two-step daygame or night game worlds, but remember we’re talking about women here. If you want women to make logical sense all the time then you’re in for a very rough life.

I have been on literally hundreds of first dates via online dating over the last 12 years. (I actually pulled up the spreadsheet tracking for that to get the raw data for this article. God damn, I’ve been on a lot of first dates!) The only time I got these dates by getting a woman’s phone number first and then figuring out the date is less than 3%. That means the other 97% of these dates I got by at least agreeing to a first date/meet to some degree and then getting the phone number (or other means of communication; more on this in a minute).
So that’s lesson number one. Stop asking for women’s phone numbers online until and unless you have gained at least some agreement from her that yes, she is indeed going to get in some kind of vehicle and travel somewhere to meet you in real life. Then you can exchange phone numbers.

The best way to do this is to offer your phone number first. I never ask for a woman’s phone number online. Again, too threatening. Instead, once I get some kind of agreement to the date pitch, I say something like this:
“Cool! You can text me if that’s easier. Or I can text you. xxx.xxx.xxxx”
Do I have times where this doesn’t work and women instantly vanish? Sure. It happens all the time. But statistically, your results will be orders of magnitude better than just asking for a girl’s number without any discussion of meeting up in real life.Alternate Forms Of Contact

The next problem is that there are now a bazillion different ways you can contact a woman. This was very different than 10-12 years ago when it was simply a matter of phone numbers and maybe some kind of IM software like Yahoo Messenger.
Today, women communicate on apps like:
-Snapchat
-Whatsapp
-Kik
-Instagram
-Facebook Messenger
-Facetime
And so on
Some of you guys need to understand that phone numbers aren’t necessary anymore. Moreover, many women prefer to communicate on these other apps instead of normal texting to a phone number. A few recent examples:

1. Twice now I’ve had women on Bumble instantly ghost me as soon as I said I didn’t have Facetime. (I use an Android phone.)

2. A while back on a sugar daddy site, I met up with and had sex with a much younger Type 2 woman (a very cute blonde; my favorite kind) without paying her anything. She was interested in older guys and had plenty of other older guys message her. Yet, I was the only guy she met up with. When I asked her why, her answer was telling. She said, “None of these older guys have Snapchat. You were the only one who did.”Indeed, when I got an agreement that she was interested in meeting me, I offered her both my phone number and my Snapchat ID. No other guy had ever done that. She even laughed when she said one guy told her she should “email him.”

3. I had a similar scenario on a different dating site/app (I don’t remember which) when the girl, who had just moved here from South America, said she met up with me because I was the only American guy she had talked to (so far) who actually used Whatsapp.
So, based on all the above (and many other examples I could tell you from guys who email me), you could and perhaps should modify the statement I used above to something like this:
“Cool! You can text me if that’s easier. Or I can text you. xxx.xxx.xxxx. I’m also on Snapchat if you prefer that. My ID is xxxxxxx.”
Often, she’ll respond with, “My snap is xxxxx.” Boom, hit her up on Snapchat and you’re off to the races.
Obviously, this means you need to be on these apps and somewhat familiar with them. Some of you older bastards in my age group have a problem with this. I keep running into guys over age 35 who want to date younger women but barely know what Snapchat is, much less actually have the app on their phones and know how to use the damn thing.

You should consider Snapchat and Whatsapp as bare minimums, plus perhaps two or three others that are popular in your area. Get these apps, set up accounts, and learn how to use them, regardless of how dumb, immature, redundant, or frivolous you think these apps are (which, to a great degree, they are). As always, I don’t care what you think; you need to do what needs to be done in order to be effective. Or go home and jerk off to porn.What about social media? What happens if a woman tells you to add her on Facebook or Instagram? Should you do it?

In my experience, this is the online equivalent of a woman asking you to “come see her at work!” for the first date/meet because she’s a stripper. In other words, she’s interested in your attention rather than your cock.
I’m not saying there aren’t ways to get laid using social media. There certainly are. (I talk about some of them in The Ultimate Online Dating Manual, and perhaps that would be a good topic for a future article here. Instagram in particular, is becoming a gold mine for some guys.) I’m saying that if you attempt to contact close a woman online and the only thing she throws at you is her Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter page where she can add you to the other 4,000 drooling, hungry beta males who will never have sex with her, you’re better off moving on to other women.

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