Granted I’m pursuing women of a different generation, but after an initial back and forth I ask if we can chat on the phone, once you can talk to them and things go well you can ask about meeting. That works for me almost 90% of the time.
In a way, you're fortunate. I'm guessing you are dealing primarily with Gen X women. You're also likely dealing with the first half of Gen X (1965-1974 births).
I'm an early Millennial and deal mainly with earlier Millennials. For the past decade or so, I've been dealing with 1983-1990 born women.
Women born from 1983-1990 are difficult to get on the phone initially but it's possible. During the 2010s, I learned to eliminate the smartphone as much as possible from interactions, particularly in the early stages. I ask women out in person and only get their numbers after they've agreed to a date. I see no point in having a number if I don't have a date already.
@Pierce.Manhammer -- Your tactic would work well if you got a number without an agreed upon date.
Second girl offered me her number after I asked her out in person for drinks. Then a few texts back and forth after saying hi, she asked how the rest of my night went and I said "I'll tell you over our drinks". Which she has now ghosted.
It's good you are doing in-person approaches, asked someone out in-person, and got a number in-person. Ghosts/flakes will happen from that. I've had that happen. It stinks but it is a part of it. You do want to have active strategies to reduce ghosting percentages but it can't fully be eliminated.
Men and women can't be real friends. And it's even worse off when you start off on a romantic note with the girl. She loses respect for you because you are giving up your want for sex (that she knows you have) to be just friends.
Another note is sometimes you swing and you miss with a girl, but if you stick to your guns you want something romantic, she respects you more. Then you meet her at a party or a bar, again, or she sees you on Tinder, and you get a second up to bat to show your value. This happened to me recently and I hooked up with a girl for a couple months that had previously rejected me.
Here's Rollo's take on male-female friendships.
https://therationalmale.com/2011/11/30/intergender-friendship/
I agree that men and women can't be real friends. It's possible to have female acquaintances and be on good terms with them. Female friendships are generally a bad idea, especially when forming them in adulthood and after college graduation (for those that attend college). The best female acquaintances are the ones you've known since before puberty and this only happens when you stay in the same geographic area for decades. I moved to my current city in my late 20s.
I may have done a lot of things wrong over the past 20+ years, but the one thing I've not done wrong is female friendship. Simply put, I have no female friends in my local area. Right now, I have legitimate female friend but she lives in another city and I've never been physically attracted to her. I rate her a "5".
The downside of not keeping female friends is that you will have fewer opportunities for social circle setups. As I have shown before, social circle setups have been declining since ~1990 but they still comprise a decent amount of longer term relationships. I've known men who have lived on their social circle setups for most of their dating lives. These types of men typically aren't on SoSuave because they don't need to be. The men I know who fit this description barely ever have approached strangers to get dates.
Social circle is tough. It takes years to develop a social circle that is capable of producing introductions for dates. Some men simply aren't capable of having one for a variety of reasons and some reason aren't at all a reflection of his level of social skill. Frequent relocations are a common reason for not having a good circle.
I agree to not budging from desires for romance with a particular woman. In most instances, it will kill off the interaction but there is the occasional instance that
@DontThinkTwice brings up where it can benefit you.