That first phone call from a man you’re contemplating meeting can be as comforting as a soothing foot massage. Or it can be the bleeping warning that to meet this guy would be a monumental mistake, causing you to miss a gym workout or worse —Friends reruns. Here are a few examples, culled from friends, of bad bad phone (e-mail, too) given by guys without a clue.

• Nancy: Thirty seconds into our very first phone conversation, he asked why my marriage broke up. I couldn’t hang up fast enough, but had to stay on a few more minutes making nice.
• Betsy: John is a musician and a salesman except that the salesman part he hasn’t been doing in a year;  he’s looking for another sales job, he’s moving, he’s sorry to leave that neighborhood, and on and on. So he’s supporting himself with his band gigs, playing guitar. “I’m holding it together, play most Fridays and Saturdays. I hope you’ll come down and see me,” and he let me know the venues, where he’d be playing for the next three weeks. He wanted me to write it all down. I pretended to grab my agenda book, assured me I was noting down those dates, no problem. From my point of view, it sounded so inviting, you know, a no risk on his part non-date. He could sit on the stage and play his guitar while looking me over. Nice
• Melinda: Yup, we were meeting for a glass of wine and he cancelled that afternoon. He thought breakfast was a better idea. “I’m just not into the bar scene,” he wrote. Since when is meeting over a glass of wine the bar scene? The worst part was that he canceled in an e-mail.
• Sunny: He made a joke on the phone. I didn’t laugh.  ”Oh, you didn’t think that was funny,” he said. ”I’m laughing on the inside,” I said. The conversation pretty much died after that.
• Diane: “Well, would you like to meet?” he asked after about twenty minutes of phone conversation. When I told him I would love to he said the feeling was mutual. “But let’s do a drive-by,” he said. “What’s that?” I asked, dreading the answer. “Oh, a quickie meet. Twenty minutes. No longer. That way there’s no risk, nothing invested. A quick cup of coffee. No fuss, no muss.” I told him there was someone at my door and I’d call him back. And no, I didn’t.
• Barbara: An hour we talked. Hit it off. Told me about his business, his kids, his exercise routine and asked me questions about myself, so it wasn’t one-sided. Just when I figured he’d ask about meeting, he told me he didn’t think we had a connection. My mouth was still hanging open when he hung up.