How far have you pursued a conversation with a "wrong number"?

I believe that serendipity crap is only possible in movies,if anyone starts a conversation with a complete stranger,they are either severely lonely and/or weird !!

I have lots of wrong number conversations that have been fun, random and amusing.

Of course I think it has a lot to do with ones personality and that of the wrong number.

I just misdialed the other day trying to reach my gardener buddy to come do the spring mowing. Ended up having a silly conversation with a guy and asked if he wanted to come mow my lawn. lol

Last summer I threw a big party with live music, mis-dialed a freind and ended up meeting a really nice woman that I ended up inviting to my party!

It’s all about being open and playful, you never know what might turn up, like your friend Bob. I see that as a fortuitious karmic moment! ;-)

Until she came to mey home and ravaged me. Nice that she dialed my number, then completed the number. (This was several decades ago, when I was more “appealing.”)

@Pretty_Lilly

I’m sorry you have that attitude, meeting and chatting with ‘strangers’ is one of my greatest joys whether it’s at the grocery store, a wrong number or traveling.

It’s all about attiude, go forth with a happy face and open intention and the world delivers all sorts of delightful little surprises.

Whats that saying…’ a stranger is a friend whom you havn’t met yet!’

@Pretty_Lilly
I believe that serendipity crap is only possible in movies,if anyone starts a conversation with a complete stranger,they are either severely lonely and/or weird !!

I am certainly not lonely, not particularly weird either (or so my wife assures me), and I have interesting chats with strangers several times a day as a rule. I’ll talk to anyone – usually after they smile at me. It would be an unusual day when I don’t meet at least one or two new people.

Last Tuesday my cellphone rang and when I answered a woman asked me whether she was talking to the “Morrison” Family. I had no idea who the Morrison family was, and I answered “No, you are talking to a guy pushing a shopping trolley down a supermarket aisle – aren’t mobile phones wonderful devices?” I was doing some grocery shopping on my way home. After a second’s hesitation then some laughter we ended up chatting for twenty minutes. (I still don’t know who the Morrison family is.)

When we received a number of wrong numbers asking for the same person on our two landlines, I made it a point to find out what the correct number was, and when a wrong number would ring, I would correct the caller. In one case, the number belonged to a doctor who had died, and most of the calls were from pharmacies for refills. In the other case, it was for a landscaping service and the callers usually had two numbers transposed. Sometimes it was a misdial, but very often it was because they had written the number down incorrectly. It was much easier to have a conversation about the misdial than to have them keep calling.

What I can’t stand is when people call my cell phone, ask for someone, I say they have the wrong number, and then they keep calling back. Usually they ask what number they’ve reached, and get annoyed when I ask what number they’re calling. I am not going to give my number out to someone. Texts to the wrong number are worse.

I’m with @DarkScribe, and generally have conversations with people just out of politeness. In the case of the misdial looking for “Irv,” the conversation probably went, “Is Irv there?”
“You have the wrong number.”
“I’m sorry, I had this number from a few years ago, and was hoping to reach Irv to help me work on my car.”
“I get a lot of calls for Irv. Wish I had the right number to give you. I work on cars…”

Last time I called a wrong number, I heard a man of about 60 yell “hello!” about 5 times, whilst I tried to talk to him and eventually realized that this guy wasn’t my dad. All he said was hello, and after I mentioned that I had the wrong number, he said it twice more and hung up on me. Weirdest. Phone call. Evr.

Just long enough for them to order a cake.

Years ago I picked up the phone at work and the lady on the other end had misdialed. We started chatting and within 5 minutes she wanted, and eventually did, bring me all her business.

I like chatting with strangers. There is nothing stranger, to me, than a group of people standing in a line up, for instance, studiously ignoring one another.

I once had one with a guy who was as much of a smart ass as me. It was hysterical! He said hey Steve, I said Bob?? (even though my name is not Steve and his was not Bob) We then went into a 15 minute conversation about what was new and going on…we said goodbye and agreed to talk again soon! lol!

@Cruiser

Haha..I love it!
Pretty cool, considering most men don’t really play with each other much, two random strangers that synched up for a brief moment in time.

When someone calls my number in error (which is about half the calls I get in some months), then I let them know that “There’s no Bob here,” but I don’t hang up. If they haven’t hung up, then I’ll ask what number they’re calling, and if they tell me, then I can either let them know, “You need to try that number again, because you mis-dialed,” or, “Well, that’s the number you dialed, all right, but it must be an old or incorrect number, because I’ve had that number now for 8 years, and there’s never been a Bob here.”

Unfortunately, some people are so irredeemably stupid that when I tell them either of those things, and they thank me, they then hang up and hit the “Redial” button on their phones. Morons.

I did have a text conversation with a stranger once, but they’re blocked now. :)

I never have conversations beyond a “No, this is Nick” – a quick laugh and that’s it. But these are pretty interesting stories and I think it would be fun to have a conversation with a stranger.

Awkward! Someone tried that with me once. I wasn’t having it.
I’m sure the person was very nice but I had no reason to talk to him.
I was polite.

I actually went on a date with a wrong number. He was a lawyer and he left a message on my answering machine. It sounded important, so I called him back to tell him it was the wrong number. He thanked me and that was that. About a week later, he called again, but I was home to answer. We started chatting and ended up going out for a drink a couple of days later. He was the best looking man I had ever gone on any kind of date with and I was tongue-tied. I didn’t make a good impression, but he was nice to look at over a drink for a while. :~)

Now, I have the occasional wrong number conversation with collectors who are looking for the person who used to have our number. She still gives it out. About every 9 to 12 months, we start to get calls for her. I explain that she has lied about her number again, and that if they ever do find her, to tell her that we would like it if she would cut it out!

This reminds me of one really weird call I found on my answering machine one evening when I got home. It was a male voice, and he said, “This is Dr. So-and-so calling to give an update on Arthur’s operation. It was successful [I forget some of the details] ... and his penis should be okay now [as a man, I certainly recall that part]. The sutures look fine and he’s ready to go home whenever you come by to pick him up.”

I thought that this was an extremely unprofessional message to leave, so I spent time looking up “Dr. So-and-so” in the phone book… and found out he was a veterinarian. I simply called the secretary to tell her about the mistake.

I got a misdialed call from a girl, who was obviously upset with her college teacher, and she thought I was the number she was calling. I kept telling her I wasn’t, but she just let out all her feelings and emotions. We talked for ½ hour, and several times after. It took her several calls to realize I wasn’t who she thought I was.

@CyanoticWasp

lololol…thats hilarious, glad Arthurs penis was okay. hahaha

I used to sign up for political jargon using my cat and gooses names…just for the fun of it.

Cracked me up to get mail with their names on it.

‘Dear Gadwicke, your support is very valuable to us.’ lololol

All the way to the Altar.

not really but that just sounds so cool for this question.

My number is similar to a doctor’s office in town. I get sad, scared calls from people asking for test results. I have the doctor’s number at hand now, I chatted with one older woman for awhile.

My partner picked up the phone one afternoon to a woman who was looking for the local Shell petrol station. Her English wasn’t very good and this resulted in a lengthy phone call to explain we were not the Shell station.

Caller: “Hello, ahhh, Shell station?”
Partner: “Um no, you have the wrong number.”
Caller: “Yes, uh, time you are open tonight?”
Partner: “No no, this is not the Shell station…”
Caller: “Yes, Shell station”
Parner: “No Shell station here.”
Caller: “Can I speak with Manager please”

Partner passes the phone to me!!

Me: “Hello?”
Caller:“Yes, rude employee. What time you open tonight.”

* sigh *

I hung up in the end. LOL

@Rachienz my parents had a similar problem years ago. A pizza place opened up in town and they used to get a lot of misdialed calls asking for various orders. (I forget exactly what the problem was: either they had some literature printed up with my parents’ number or it was just a close match and all the stoners had trouble dialing with their touchpads.)

For a long time—a couple of years, in fact—my folks would correct the callers very patiently. But it kept on happening, and they were kind of annoyed, because the pizza place didn’t seem to care much, because business was good. On a visit home one time I saw it happen and let them watch my ‘solution’ in action: I’d answer the phone, pretend to take their order, and tell them to come in to pick it up in a half-hour. They started to do the same thing.

The pizza place changed their number a couple of months after that started happening.

My old number was one number off from a local Italian restaurant, so we got their calls a lot. I memorized their number in short order. I’ve had a few short, funny conversations with non-restaurant related wrong numbers. However, I also have a cautionary tale: When I was 15 or 16, a guy called looking for a girl he’d met at a party. It wasn’t me, but we started chatting anyway. We ended up talking for a good half hour or so, when things took a turn. He asked me what I was wearing… you can see where this is heading, right? When he asked me to take my clothes off, I freaked out and hung up on him. He spent the next several months making my life extremely uncomfortable, calling me day and night, harassing me pretty much non-stop. (This was pre caller ID days, too.) He finally stopped after he scared one of my friends enough that she started crying on the phone. Asshat. :/