They have gotten to the point where they are alright with meeting this person in real life at a public place, but they aren’t sure that this is a person that they want to have their phone number.
By meeting without giving a phone number, they are acknowledging that there is interest, but there is yet to be trust established.
When a person agrees to meet on a date in real life without giving a phone number beforehand, they are indicating that they aren’t ready to take their interaction to the level of exchanging phone numbers quite yet.
They may have agreed to meet without giving a phone number because they want to get a better read for what the other person is like.
They may want to verify that the person that they have been interacting with on the online dating site actually looks like how they represent themselves on their online dating profiles.
Hence, before they are willing to give a phone number to this person, they want to know that they are dealing with a person who has been honest about the way they look on their online dating profile.
They also want to make sure that the person has been honest about what their life is like and how they are as a person.
Oftentimes, unscrupulous people can put on a fake persona on online dating sites.
They may act a certain way because they know that this kind of behavior would appeal to the person that they are chatting with online.
However, this may not necessarily be who this person really is in real life.
They could be making all of this up.
Hence, when you come across someone online who agrees to meet with you without giving you a phone number, they are most likely being cautious and wanting to verify whether you are indeed who you have been proposing yourself to be online.
They don’t want to give you their phone number until they have been able to determine this through meeting with you on a date in a public place.
If they were to give you their phone number before having verified that, they may put themselves in a position where they are now having to deal with the phone calls of a person that they have since determined wasn’t being genuine in how they represented themselves online.
This could cause unnecessary stress in their lives and they don’t want that.
When a person agrees to meet without a phone number, it may also be because they worry that collecting phone numbers is all that you are doing online.
In essence, they do not want to simply be another phone number to you.
They may not want you to see them as someone that you can call up or text from time to time just so that you can kill your boredom or get some.
They want you to understand that getting their phone number from them is actually a privilege.
Hence, by agreeing to meet without giving you a phone number, they are able to make you wonder about whether you are ever going to get it.
This may entice you to work hard to impress them or give them the reassurance that you are really invested in your courtship of them.
Hence, to some extent, they want to keep you guessing for a little longer.
If they like you after meeting you at this date, they will feel more willing to give you their phone number because they will now want you to chase them.