Tales from the 90s: Can you be ghosted by someone who uses a pager?

Pagers could easily be considered the first communication tech tool used in the dating world, but how does it compare to the smartphone of today – and what is it really like being ghosted in analog?

Doctors have been using pagers since the 1950s, but for the average person, it wasn't until the late 1900s (yes, that phrase is now a thing) that the pocket-sized device had its heyday moment in history.

The pager has always ranked as a sort of pop-culture icon for 90s kids and GenXers, and the recent use of the device as a deadly weapon has only given the WiFi-free hand-held an even more infamous reputation.

More commonly referred to as a “beeper,” the term “paging” became a verb in its own right – similar to the adoption of the word "googling" in modern society, which according to Wikipedia, was popularized by TV cult favorite “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in a 2002 episode.

But, what about mobile phones, you ask? Weren’t they in circulation near the end of the 20th century?

Well, the correct answer would be a yes… but also a no.

In the '80s and '90s, when pager popularity was at its peak, the only people sporting the huge, inconveniently large, brick-like mobile devices were stereotypically frat-boy stockbrokers or the tennis-playing executives wearing an Izod sweater wrapped around their shoulders.

Yes, the monstrosity known as the “car phone” was an optional install between the bucket seats of luxury cars back then (think Jaguar or Mercedes-Benz), but for the average Joe, the pager was a true bargain for the ‘cool factor’ it awarded its owners.

And for any teenager or young adult, proving how 'gucci' you were to your fellow high school or college friends was the ultimate flex.

Pagers were a status symbol

No matter whether in school or out on a Friday night, the continuous and sometimes deafening beeps emanating from the tiny gadget (can’t show off if it’s on vibrate, yo) would interrupt whatever was going on. And then almost immediately, the person being paged would rush off to the nearest pay phone to call back the random phone number showing up on the device's minuscule screen.

Memories of jealous boyfriends or girlfriends paging each other incessantly all night to find out where their significant other was hanging out or to make plans to meet up were commonplace. There was no such thing as location sharing.

Throngs of people would be standing around public pay phones, patiently waiting for a turn in the booth to make their calls, some more desperate than others. Pay phone perimeters were comparable to waiting in line for the girl's bathroom, swapping stories of cheating lovers and deceitful friends.

Coinciding with the rise of hip-hop culture, according to the 2018 BoomBox article, Hit Me Up: Hip-Hop’s History with Pagers, “By the time the '90s hit, roughly 61 million pagers were in use,” cementing the device as a necessary ‘thug life’ fashion accessory.

Sir Mix-a-Lot 1989🔥🔥
“Beepers”🔥🔥🔥🔥
“1-800-759-7243” I still have memorized even tho I never once dialed it💯 pic.twitter.com/UiDvcw2OSO

undefined Diana Prince (@SBGIRL805) April 28, 2022

In fact, the pager became so synonymous with drug dealers – who touted the device for its anonymity and untraceability – that most family members would falsely accuse their relatives of being criminals themselves – or at least dating one.

Even so, there was some sort of freedom attached to having a pager. Users would easily give out their beeper numbers to random people, unlike today where it's more common to share an Instagram, Snap, or X handle.

The thrill of calling back an unknown number just to see who was on the other end was endlessly exciting – unlike the smartphone user today, who would rather cut off their own arm than pick up a call from an unknown number.

OK, ok, there were some drawbacks. For example, when it came to communicating with your crush, interpreting pager lingo became a feat in alphanumeric translations fitting of a Morse code specialist.

There was the upside down Hello (07734), I miss you (1*177*155*400), Goodbye 6000*843), and Go Home (60*401773).

And of course, we can not forget the fan-favorite "80085" which translates to the word "BOOBS" on the character-driven beeper screen.

Still, there were no worries about privacy or boundaries, someone could have your pager number, but that didn’t guarantee the person would even know your name.

Beeper numbers were unpublished, there was no directory or reverse search, and the number associated with your pager could be changed easily and as often as you liked.

Today, a personal phone number has become somewhat of a coveted prize for a person to earn, shared only with the owner's inner circle, and often kept for that user’s lifetime.

Pager life was cheap

In 1985, a pager would set its owner back about $50 bucks for the device itself and another $10 a month for the service, easily affordable even for a kid mowing lawns or babysitting on the weekends.

Today, a smartphone will cost you almost a thousand dollars and at the minimum, $75 a month for the average full-time user.

Avid Quora user and self-proclaimed pager connoisseur Alan MacNeill (he owned a few in the 90s) described the variety of options available to pager users back then for those curious about how the whole operation worked.

“A pager itself was fairly inexpensive, like $50 or so. The monthly service was $9.99-$15/month, depending on your carrier,” MacNeill wrote on the random question-and-answer platform.

“There were a couple of different options, you could just have a straight numeric pager, which showed the number of whoever called your pager number, *or* for a few dollars more a month (and a few more bucks on the pager), you got a service which answered your number, took a message up to 140 characters and sent that to you along with the number (think Twitter, only no hashtags or @s),” MacNeill further explained.

Check out this explanation (pictured below) of how to call a pager using a touch-tone phone on the Cambridge University website and you’ll go cross-eyed. But back then it was what we did and deemed normal. Oh, how far technology has come.

The end of an era

“By 1997, the pager would evolve from a one-way messaging device that could only receive numeric messages to a two-way messaging device,” BoomBox said, noting that “with a two-way messaging device, people no longer had to find a phone to reply.”

The evolution continued with the introduction of the two-way pager/qwerty keyboard combo, which could easily set you back about $400, considered a luxury item back then.

Not only did this change the dynamic of how to ignore the person relentlessly “paging” you, but it also led to the eventual death of the good ‘ole pay phone excuse such as, “I couldn’t call back because”...

• There was no pay phone within miles.
• The pay phone was broken.
• The pay phone ate all my quarters.

Let’s note, these pager excuses eventually morphed into the modern-day versions of:

• I left my phone at ‘x’.
• My phone died.
• I had no signal.

Ironically, unless you were really mad at someone, I don’t recall many stories of being “ghosted” by someone who used a pager. I supposed there were the “micro-ghosters” (did I just coin a new phrase?), i.e., those who took their sweet time answering a page.

But overall, maybe the excitement of having new communication technology at our fingertips was too enticing not to use, even with less desirable humans.

Maybe pager life was not as instant, and people were more patient. There was no expectation of neverending communication as we presume with texting, instead, allowing ourselves the space to process (or decipher) someone’s message.

I do not remember pagers as anxiety-provoking devices, at least not the way smartphone communication has led to endless users questioning their mental sanity when it comes to dating and relationships.

Or maybe we just had better things to do.

Either way, by 2001, the cell phone was introduced into the mainstream, and the dating world was forever changed.

It moved from the possibility of being ignored in analog to experiencing the full-blown gamet of digital degradation, the most common form aptly known today as the ever-hated act of ghosting.

But that’s a whole other story.