Texting on Dates? Just Hang Up

Texting may be a ubiquitous form of communication, but you might want to put away that handset when you’re sitting across from a first date, writes Martha Irvine for the AP. "Oh, the fun of pretending to be interested in what someone else is typing to someone you don't know,” said one miffed dinner partner, who likely won’t call back. But the growing messaging culture in the US doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not that into you.

In the last 8 years, the number of messages sent a month has grown from a million to 75 billion. “People understand it's not right, but they still do it anyway,” one expert said. “The information they're getting back is worth the risk.” But that doesn’t mean daters have to like it. One man, ditched for a conversation out-of doors, had his revenge. “I told the bartender that my friend would take care of the bill and walked out.” (More text message stories.)