In the past, I have given my number, but it feels a bit too personal giving my number to someone else. I don’t really use social media (instagram, facebook, etc) so that is out of the picture. I wanted to get a service like mysudo for extra phone numbers, but I live in Australia and mysudo does not have any local numbers for my country. Honestly, it feels quite isolating and awkward when the conversations comes up about exchanging socials because I have no idea as to what to give to the other person.
EDIT: Seems like I don’t have much of a choice. Giving out an email is my best choice. Don’t think anyone in a social context would ever contact me again via email lol. I’m not a fan of social media (not even in the context of privacy). Getting extra phone numbers is a nightmare in Australia due to strict regulation. I wish more people used signal. I have tried to give out my signal username, but most people my age are apathetic towards privacy.
Something like signal or simplex might be introducing hurdle for them since not many uses it. I’d say email since everyone and their grandma got email. But not your real address though, use alias service. Simplelogin, addy.io, duck.com etc.
Ask if they use Signal and if they do, you could exchange usernames. If they don’t, you could ask them to download it but I don’t think the success rate will be that high because they’ve just met you.
You could set up a social media account just for the purpose of handing it out to whoever. If you start talking with one of those people and feel comfortable giving them your number and asking them to move to a different platform then that’s what you do. This way you’re not giving your number to every random person you meet.
I have been in this situation before.
Try asking them about signal first and use that to exchange usernames or phone numbers to contact with or let them know to get it for you and that you’ll respond more immediately there (and to prove it let them Hanging around a day in say SMS, basically make it a hassle to contact you elsewhere and get them to use signal). Otherwise start with a phone number and try to gradually get them to use it once you get closer to them!
If MySudo isn’t an option, why not Google Voice?
Could you get a second SIM and give that number out to people you’ve just met? The second SIM wouldn’t need to be on an expensive plan as you wouldn’t need any data and you might not even call from it. If you’re using something like WhatsApp, you only need the second SIM for receiving confirmation texts from WA but can run WA on your normal SIM over your normal data connection and you could keep the second SIM in an old phone at home if you wanted. (The usual privacy concerns with having the WhatsApp app on your phone still apply, of course.)
If you care about receiving traditional calls and texts from new contacts you could keep the second SIM in your daily carry phone alongside your main SIM, if it’s dual-SIM capable.
You could even rotate the second SIM out - easier with PAYG, I guess - every six months or year and get a new SIM with a new “probationary friend” number, and just check the older SIM for missed calls/texts once in a while. Once you start to trust someone you can tell them your main number and either explain the real situation or just pretend you changed your number for some innocent reason. Or convince them to use Signal and avoid phone numbers altogether.
(I’ve done this while on holiday, by accident. I bought a local SIM card for internet access, but I realised there was a real sense of freedom in being able to give the local phone number out to people I’d just met without worrying. I had no long term commitment to that number so if I gave it to someone who abused it, it wasn’t really a big deal.)
You can get an anonymous voip number through something like jmp.chat. I use that number to hand out to people and then get them to switch to signal later on.
