You don't have to be that old for this to have been reality. Early Millennials had to do this in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
Cell phones didn't get that common until around either my sophomore year (2002-2003) or junior year (2003-2004) of college.
I remember a few instances in junior and senior years of high school (1999 - 2001) calling girls on their landline phone and hoping not to talk to either their mom or dad. In high school, all the girls I gamed were on my school's campus so if I needed to talk to a girl, I could wait until school the next day. Back then, the phone was considered a substitute for having the balls to say things in-person. Both the phone and in-person stuff required balls.
Instant messaging services (such as AOL Instant Messenger) started to become popular around 2000 and those were the precursors to texting. I don't ever recall getting a female's AIM handle before getting her number though.
In my high school days, I could avoid a lot of phone contact simply because I had a small world of girls. By the time I got to college, the campus worlds was much bigger and did require getting phone numbers. That was right as cell phones were getting big so I barely ever had to get past roommates on a landline.
Phone calls can work under the right circumstances.
I don't think it's a good idea to call a woman if she doesn't have your number entered into her phone. There are 2 ways to work through this. When you initially get her number, you can provide her with yours. That's a true number exchange in an in-person interaction. The other way is through initially texting her something like "Hi X, this is Your Name'. This is how women get your number from tech-based interactions. It's applicable to in-person interactions when she doesn't get your number while you get hers. The random number text is explained to her and if she's interested, she'll add your name to her contacts. Women who aren't truly interested never add you to their contacts and they won't pick up your random number phone call from their caller IDs.
Once you think she has your number stored in her phone, the 'Just Call Her' works better because she's more likely to either pick up a phone call from you or see that you've called if she missed your call and/or return a voicemail. I still recommend leaving simple voicemails when making calls.
Women who don't have your number stored are unlikely to answer your phone call and you are also unlikely to get a returned phone call either.
It's also good to avoid the phone tag problem with phone calls. That was a big problem for seducers in the 1970s-2000s before text messages. I've been actively participating on this forum 3 years and no one has ever talked about that.
Age is related to a woman's phone use skill and her comfort with using the phone for voice purposes. This extends to all types of social interactions, not just mating interactions. Women born before 1980 are most comfortable using the phone for voice interactions. Women born between 1980-1985 are somewhat comfortable with the phone for voice interactions, but there are some phone averse women in this group. Since I was born during this time, these are the women my age and slightly younger. Women born in 1986 (age 36/37 as of this writing) or later are often phone averse. The younger she is, the more phone averse she is. Someone born in 1986-1988 will be better with phone interactions than someone born 1992-1994.
@Grayfox stated his context was "
You've known each other for a bit and have gone out on a few dates already". In that case, a man can just call her. The tricky part of the phone dance is prior to the 3rd date.
@Grayfox is likely mainly dealing with women born in 1988-1993, so there's some level of phone aversion in the women he's dealing with. I've even encountered instances of women born in like 1983-1985 who avoided phone calls for voice communication as much as possible.