Business hours

Sometimes a dating woman needs business hours.

Gentlemen callers used to be a little more respectful of when they called a lady. A phone call after 12 a.m. was a definite no-no (unless you were a booty call at which point respect is not a factor). Unfortunately, I’ve started to notice that guys are calling later and later and thinking it’s OK. Newsflash fellas: IT’S NOT! For that very reason a dating woman needs business hours for male callers.


My business hours are the time period from when I get off from work until I go to bed. It’s a six hour window that allows adequate time to catch me at a respectable hour. A guy needs to call during business hours or not at all. I don’t have time to be distracted by a caller before or during work. I like to be focused on the job. And bedtime hits around 11 p.m. Unless it’s one of my home girls or family members I do not talk on the phone after that time. I do offer the caveat that if a conversation with a male caller started before business hours ended I will continue it beyond the time frame. But I’m not accepting new calls beyond the deadline.

I tried to explain this to one man, but he seems to think I’m joking. On several instances he’s called fairly late and I’ve said that I don’t talk after a certain time. He called earlier the next few times, but yet again he’s drifted back into the old ways. Friday morning he thought it was OK to call at 12:51 a.m. The call was ignored, and he received a text along the lines of:

Thank you for calling Toni Enterpprises. Our business hours are 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. EST. All calls before that time period will be returned at our earliest convenience. However, any calls after that time frame will be ignored. Have a great night!

Surely that would be the end of the late night calls. NO! He called back at 1:04 a.m. Why would you call outside of the parameters if I specifically indicated the times I am available to talk? This made me slightly salty. He hasn’t called in months, and when he finally did it was well past respectable hours. When I told him as much he further demonstrated he didn’t care about respecting my requirements.

Maybe in my younger days (think college years) I would have been OK with a call that late. But now I’m a working professional who goes to bed early. Furthermore I’ve got too much self-respect to deal with late callers. I’m worth more than a late night call from someone who hasn’t bothered to pick up the phone since January anyway. I would say he wanted a booty-call but since we don’t get down like that I’ll classify it as an ego boost. There was a time I did like him. But not respecting the business hours has made me lose all interest.