Pre-first-date would normally be a short bit of time in a club or pub when I first met them, before organising a more personal follow-up. There was no 'just a friend' period.
Pretty much everyone else including me dated people we knew before at least as acquittances. And those relationships are the ones that ended up being long term and with kids.
Sure talking about politics and similar things took some time, we started with the more physical side, but I had a good tendency to choose interesting people so even when it didn't last for any significant amount of time it was still fun, and still worthwhile.
I generally find people easy to talk to in person. All my romantic partners have been people I've met in real life. It's much easier to gauge their reactions, read their body language, etc. Waiting for a response on a chat fills me with anxiety.
Once I've met someone in real life, text chatting becomes much easier.
I've always just talked on the phone. I know a lot of younger people are afraid of phone conversations too, but I'm fortunate to be of an older generation for whom it's not a big deal.
I guess you could also try a Zoom date.
I think it has something to do with the absolutely abysmal audio quality of today's phones, which makes it a lot harder for some of us to process speech and hear the more subtle vocal communications.
Also when I moved to another city was a great way to get out of the apartment since I knew nobody there.
Going solo is counterproductive if your goal is meeting new people.
I believe the days messaging are a waste of time as I have no clue if a spark is there in person before I see you in the flesh. And very quickly, short time for physical attraction, and within 2-3 minutes for interaction, I can tell if there is the potential for something growing. None of that happens in messaging beyond very basic filtering of basic comms.
Messaging back and forth really doesn't mean much for me. I spend relationships with a person in the flesh, and message not very often, so initial contact on dating websites beyond a few basic messages back and forth are essentially just more dancing around before we get to the brass tax of whether there is any chance at all of attraction.
But that's me and how it worked for me and my partner. Everyone's different of course.
"brass tacks"[1], not "brass tax".
[1] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brass%20tacks
Yup, saved it jaunty, you've still got it.
That's fascinating, as somebody who loves this period and thinks of it as a requirement to find out my compatibility with somebody before we go on an actual date. If you're not up to scratch on the initial few days of chatting then I have no interest in taking it further. And I appreciate that many people aren't interested in this, but then it just means the two of us aren't compatible, and that's fine.