Women prefer a suitor to SMS her, not phone

After giving out their phone number, nine out of ten women prefer the man to SMS them rather than call.

This is according to a recent poll by 118118, the UK information service.

Apparently it's because men who call are often judged to be desperate. Texting, on the other hand, appears more casual.

The survey also found more than three in four women judge a potential date's character by his text style.

Longer, well-written SMSs that include humour and some innocent flirting are favoured.

Bad spelling, poor grammar, smilies, and txtspeak are a turn off.

SMSs are akin to telegrams. A huge backward step in technology.

Just out of interest, did this poll only consider Daily Star readers, or were adults also asked?

Ed Bb knws wht hs tlkng abt.

so true, who the hell is suppost to understand that,garibaldi??? I dont want to have to guess what the message says!

SMS is the best thing about mobiles, 90% of my monthly handy bill is for SMS'sss! I don't like SMS speak though, totally unnecessary with predictive text.

I guess I'm disconnected with the technology and that's the way I like it. Don't use my cell phone for SMSing or even for phone calls. I have it in my car for emergencies only. Nothing worse than an electronic leash.

SMSing, just like emailing is so impersonal.

Predictive text is crapola if you write half of your texts in English and the other half in German. My phone gave up and kept inventing words that existed in neither language!

Really? I just swap the dictionary and mine gets on with it no problem, you've got to get rid of that cheap ALDI phone!

I find SMSs to be more personal - I find it creepy when I get an SMS from a guy.

I find it sweet when my boyfriend sends me a text or two during the day...just a way of showing that he's thinking of me. Or on the other hand it can be something as simple and basic as asking or telling me something that doesn't need to be conversed. Either way, I am a fan of texting but not dependent on it...I see it as just another easy way of communicating with someone.

SMSs can be a good way of letting someone know something, but often they're used when a phone call would be much faster, cheaper and effective. For example:

Person 1, SMS 1: You got time for a coffee this afternoon?
Person 2, SMS 1: Sure!
Person 1, SMS 2: What time's best for you?
Person 2, SMS 2: 4pm?
Person 1, SMS 3: No good for me, is 3pm OK?
Person 2, SMS 3: Yep, that's fine.
Person 1, SMS 4: Starfucks OK?
Person 2, SMS 4: Nope, hate them, somewhere German please.
Person 1, SMS 5: OK, 3pm at the Cafe Luitpold?
Person 2, SMS 5: Where is that?
Person 1, SMS 6: Hauptstrasse.
Person 2, SMS 6: Sounds fine, see you there.

Many a time have I had to interrupt such an elongated process by actually phoning the person.

As a bloke it like receiving the occasional nice SMS as well.

Phoning is great but receiving a nice sms in the middle of a droll day means a lot. Even something as simple as 'I miss you' makes you feel good.

Alternatively, for people who have half a clue how to communicate effectively:

Person 1, SMS 1: You up for coffee today, 4pm at Starbucks?
Person 2, SMS 1: Sure, but I'd rather do 3pm at Cafe Luitpold (Hauptstrasse).
Person 1, SMS 2: OK, see you there.

That's actually quite long compared to my SMS conversations. They're more like:

Friend: 8pm Kilians?
Me: OK

Asynchronous communication is the future.

It's like an electronic love letter.
One single "I U" can make anyone's day.

That sadly rules out large swathes of the population. As many of the threads and posts on this very forum demonstrate.

I'm still old-fashioned; I used to arrange to meet my friends a week in advance, using the good old-fashioned home telephone. Everyone knew what was happening and when. Happy days.

Absolutely

SMSing is actually putting some, up until now only spoken, languages into written text - so that is something new.

Those who are suppost to understand SMSing digichromatically.

I would imagine that for messages of a certain type the sms has the advantage that it is sent and cannot be retracted, so that the sender has to think carefully on the contents. A phone call can twist and turn, but an sms is commited.

Ah Yeti, copy and paste the following into your phone's software:
a"33"+''##thn+return*##xp67del'#
and Bob's your uncle.

Alls fair in social entanglements and war? The days of waiting behind a damp hedge to ambush the postman in order to recover ill-chosen words are no more.