Many relationships begin with a phone number -- the guy asks the girl for her number, he calls, they set up a date, and a relationship (possibly) begins. However, because phone numbers are sometimes abused to the point of comical exaggeration, not all phone number "transactions" result in the same scenario.

At every singles function, whether it's a weekend, a party, or a club, there is always the guy who takes a number from a girl, then takes a number from another girl, then another girl, and on and on he goes. He apparently sees the means as a goal in itself. In time, this sort of person amasses such a huge inventory of numbers that the Manhattan Yellow Pages begins to look like an abridged version of his little black book. It never dawns on him that the only way he could possibly call all these girls is if he came back in his next life as a high-speed dialer.

Of course, taking long lists of numbers sometimes has its advantages. Someone who makes a practice of it, seldom gets wrong numbers -- even when he misdials, he usually gets a number he already has.

Then there is the guy who takes relatively few numbers, but never calls anybody, anyway. Being as enigmatic as taking too many numbers, this type of behavior can perhaps be attributed to previous traumatic experiences.

Such a traumatic experience might have consisted, for example, of the guy getting a number from "the girl of his dreams," but upon calling her, he reached "Joe's Bar and Grill." This can certainly dampen anybody's enthusiasm for calling.

It sometimes makes you wonder whether making dates was simpler before phones were invented. Did people walk around with homing pigeons, like business cards? I can just picture it ...

Guy: Can I have your pigeon?

Girl: (hands him a pigeon)

Guy: When's the best time to release it?

Girl: Second week in July ... Oh ... (hands him another pigeon) ... in case I'm not in, here's my mother's pigeon.

This raises some other questions: If a guy took a girl's pigeon and didn't "call," did that make of him a rat or a thief? Did girls give pigeons that didn't belong to them to guys they didn't want to go out with? Was there such a thing as an unlisted pigeon? How did they "take the phone off the hook" when they were in no mood for "calls," close the window?

And how did screening calls work? Did they hide in the closet and wait for the pigeon to leave?

Heck, this is more complicated than I thought. Thank god we have phones.