To not answer the phone after 9pm?

[Verycold]

It's the one peaceful hour of the day - aibu to want to be left alone?

[SallyMcgally]

Not socially acceptable after 7?? Oh God I've made a million social gaffes then

[MinesAPintOfTea]

TheBuskers I added the 50s and still works because at first it might have been interpreted as ignoring a vulnerable elderly woman rather than a middle-aged capable one. Probably only one of those pieces of information was strictly necessary, but its late.

[NigellasDealer]

YANBU i hate fuckers who ring after 9, makes me think it is a family emergency, someone has died or something.

[Bogeyface]

It's not sociably acceptable to call after 7 let alone 9

Since when? Who invented the rule on when it is socially acceptable to call someone?

If I didnt call my friends after 7 then I would never talk to them! In fact we make a point of not calling each other until after 8:30 because we are all doing bedtimes.

9 o'clock is more to do with the fact that you are then in down time, private time etc than social niceties surely? My best friend and I used to ring each other up until midnight as we were both night owls, and if we wanted to talk later we would text "You up?!" anything up to 2 am! This was within the last 5 years until she started working 6am shifts.

[manicinsomniac]

oh, hang on, are we only talking about landlines?

So, you'd all answer your mobiles?

I don't have a landline (except for the internet that is) so my mobile is my phone. I feel a bit better if people would answer their mobile to me after 9. It just seems so early to start rejecting people!

[Bogeyface]

This has bugged me now!

If I couldnt call my friends after 7 when could I talk to them? We all work (in various guises) during the week, have school runs, dinner, bath, bed, blah blah. Weekends are family time (for those of us lucky enough to not have a shift working self or OH) None of us get to sit down until 8 at the earliest so when do you suggest we call?

[HootHootTootToot]

Lol, I knew that would piss people off . I don't like being called on my landline after 7 - text is much more friendly and polite. Doesn't it irritate people to receive calls when they are eating,in the middle of watching a film or bathing the kids.
Unless there is a good reason I don't want to chat in the evening. All my friends text.

[IamtheZombie]

Caller display anyone?

Zombie never answers number withheld or international / out of area numbers no matter what time of day or night.

If someone who is in her phone book rings she will answer. She has one friend in particular with whom she often chats later in the evening. We're both nightowlish but even she normally checks via here or FB that Zombie is still up.

[PigletJohn]

I once rolled over in bed angrily when my phone rang, repeatedly, in the early hours. The next morning I found a friend had died after a road accident near me, in a car driven by another friend who was taken to a nearby hospital.

My mother once had the misfortune to be called by police one night and advised to visit me in ITU without delay.

So now I do answer.

[SwingYourPantsNow]

YANBU. We've recently taken to unplugging our landline. Life is SOOOO much calmer without it on.
No longer do we have 95 million calls during the bedtime routine of baths and stories informing us that we're entitled to a new boiler, do we want new windows puttting in , blah BLAH.
Nor do we have parents ringing up 4 times in the same hour.
We can just chill.
Unplug it. You'll feel your shoulders unclench.

[SwingYourPantsNow]

Forgot to add - I always have my mobile on and will answer, but the landline 9 times out of 10 WILL be ignored! Why is that so hard to grasp for some people?!

[SwingYourPantsNow]

Does anyone else get complete GRIEF off their own parents and in laws for unplugging the landline or is it just us?!
I have a mobile. I will answer it. You'd think because we're not answering the landline that we're deliberately ignoring them though.

[PigletJohn]

caller display and answerphone are your friends.

[Bogeyface]

Hoot but thats why we do after 8:30pm because we dont want to be disturbed at that time, so we wait until after bed times etc.

Room I realise that a call is an invitation blah blah but that I do object to the idea that anyone daring to call in "OUR TIME" is intruding. Perhaps 8pm is the first time they have had chance to ring you! If they work in the day then they get home and have to have their meals, etc. Are you so insular that you regard anyone contacting you as intrusive? Thats rather sad.

[nooka]

After half eight is standard ringing time in my family, as everyone has finished eating and will probably be free. Generally I ring my family at times that work for them. All other calls are for children so they get to pick up the phone.

[Cuxibamba]

I've always told everyone I know, not to call after 9pm unless an emergency. So I always answer the phone after 9pm, just in case.

[GwendolineMaryLacey]

We don't even have a phone plugged into the landline any more. It was wall to wall cold callers. Anyone important (including school, drs etc) has my mobile number and my phone is surgically attached to me. I don't care what time that goes.

[ceres]

I don't get it - why have a landline if you don't answer it?

we don't get many cold callers.

hardly anyone rings my personal mobile. chances are I won't hear it or even have it with me.

I hate mobiles. they are so intrusive. probably doesn't help that I have to have one for work and the bloody thing never stops.

[SelectAUserName]

We have the same 9pm rule. If my stepchildren want to call after that they ring my DH's mobile.

We have caller display and answerphone so can screen calls.

[thegreatgatsby101]

I don't answer the phone at any time of the day....everyone that wants to speak to me knows I just won't pick up! :)

[Lara2]

Ronald - my mum died in the middle of the night at home with my dad. He phoned in a dreadful state as the paramedics were performing CPR (very scary and nothing like Casualty). Presumably I shouldn't have answered the phone and left my dad and sister to it?
Your comment was crass and unthinking.

[Oriunda]

Unwritten rule in our house that no calls after 9pm. Especially because the only tv I get to watch is at 9pm, one DS put to bed/dinner cooked/dishwasher loaded etc. and I go to bed at 10pm. Anyone who rings during In The Line Of Duty next week is a dead man.