Just now I was about to call an old friend I hadn’t talked to in a long while. Then I looked at the time: Ten after nine, guess I’ll wait till tomorrow.
When I was growing up it was always drilled into me not to call homes after 9:00, on the off chance that anyone might be going to bed at such an impossibly early hour. I have found one example of this in my whole life. A woman I dated in college told me her parents actually did go to bed at 9:00 every night; I found this out one night when I called her around 10 and she hissed never to do that again.
I hadn’t heard of this rule in a long time and thought I’d check back in with the Zeitgeist to see if it’s still current or am I just old fashioned?
Heck, I don’t think I’d call anyone after 7, unless it was important. I’m just basing that on my personal preference, which is not to answer the phone at all.
Unless you know for sure that your callee is going to be up, I think nine is still a reasonable time to stop calling. I’m usually in bed by nine to be up at five, so don’t call me!
In the morning, I don’t call before nine, either. Unless I’m calling my mother, who I’m certain is up at an early hour.
I’m (usually) at work at seven. I need some time in the morning, for coffee and cigarettes and newspaper and internet (close to an hour), shower, etc., make my lunch, then drive for 20 minutes, so I get up at five. I need my eight hours sleep, so - it’s Bedtime for Bonzo at nine.
Well, I only ever call three people, two of which live in an earlier time zone. The one who does reside in my time zone is my boyfriend and I usually call him after eight because I know that if I call earlier, he’ll be in the middle of dinner. As for mornings, I’ve gotten phone calls from telemarketers before 7 on a weekday, which I thought was strange!
There are people that I will call after nine, like my parents or my boyfriend if for some random reason we aren’t together. Or friends that call and leave a message to get back to them at any time before blah. Otherwise, I’d never call anyone after nine. I still find it weird that I can call my friends in California at midnight my time … but I digress.
For sure - 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. is my rule, unless I know for sure that the other person is awake. For instance, I have a friend who works swing shift on the east coast, so I know I can call her at 11 p.m. my time and she’ll be up for a talk at 2 a.m. her time - she just got home! But I’d never dream of calling most people that late.
I’m that way at work, too. I get to work at 8 a.m., but I don’t start confirming Letters to the Editor until 9 at the earliest (usually later).
No phone calls after 9PM is the rule in our house, too. It’s not that I’m in bed that early; usually, I’m not in bed until 10 or so. But it’s nice to have an hour or so before bed that’s an “interruption-free” time. I wouldn’t call anyone later than 9, either, unless they had specifically told me it was all right to do so.
I cringe if the phone rings after 9 p.m., because it’s probably going to wake up one or more kids, and it usually means an emergency service call for my husband. I rarely call anyone after 8 or 9, mostly because of deference to their “I just got the kids to sleep, and the damn phone rings!” or “Oh, no, what disaster requires such a late call?!?!”
When I was younger, and single, and childless, I was much more cavalier about my phone calls. Now I’m older, tired, and so is everybody else I know.
It is a good unofficial rule and it doesn’t have to mean that people are in bed by that hour. There just needs to be a reasonable cutoff point for that type of thing so I am happy that many people get the general idea on their own. When I was single and lived by myself, I didn’t care if people called at 1:00 am. Now that I am married and have small children, it drives me insane if someone calls at 9:05 pm because I am switching over to getting everyone down for the night and I certainly don’t want to chat. I usually just don’t answer it. My wife has a Failure to Launch childhood friend that thinks nothing about calling at 9:30, 10:30 or whenever the mood seems to strike her. It is a huge annoyance although it does make good character reference shorthand when I need it.
I used to use 10PM as the yardstick when I lived in England, but have swapped to 9PM since moving to the US since so many people seem to go to bed so early here. It is 11:33 now. My American wife went to bed over 1.5 hours ago.
When I was in my early 20’s my friends and I would call each other at all hours, especially if we’d been drinking. Then we got older and started liking some quiet time in the evening. Now when the phone rings ater 9:00 my first thought is “who died?”
I don’t think any of my friends are in bed by 9:00 though some of their children may be. It just seems intrusive to call so late. 9:00 pm and later is winding down time when you shouldn’t have to be bothering with outside distractions. So I only call after 9:00 pm if it’s an emergency.
When I was a kid, my parents acted like the only reason for the phone to ring after 10 P.M. was to tell them that somebody they knew died. To this day, whenever the phone rings late, my first thought is “Who died?”
My parents always used 10pm as the cut-off, in terms of kids’ friends calling the house phone (as opposed to private cell phones). I’d never dream of calling anyone’s house phone now, esp. my friends who still live with their parents, past 10pm. I will, and have, at 9:30, though. I feel like that’s still early enough to not catch people sleeping.
Yup, 9 am to 9 pm (unless instructed otherwise) is the rule I was raised on. Heck these days I’m up till well after 1 am on weekdays because Mr. S works second shift, but I still wouldn’t like to get a call after 9. It’s not about being in bed, it’s about (1) winding down and (2) not setting off my “who’s dead?” alarm.
I don’t remember being raised with a particular rule, but I don’t like getting calls after about 9:00 anyway, for no real reason except I don’t want to be bothered unless it’s an emergency. I don’t usually go to bed before eleven, though.
