For those of us who still use a telephone for talking—as opposed to strictly texting—leaving the perfect voice mail message requires one part tact and two parts tone. A misplaced punctuation mark can mean the difference between desperation, "Call me back!" and a simple direction, "Call me back."

Meanwhile, a misplaced pause or overemphasized adjective is voicemail suicide. And since a single voicemail can be saved into eternity, it's recommended that you practice what you're about to preach, maybe even out loud.

When it comes to flirting via voicemail, the emphasis is as much on the voice as it is on the verbiage. We'd rather replay Sean Connery's sexy coo over Mark Wahlberg's beat up drawl any day.

Likewise, when a woman's voice is too dull and husky, it's difficult for a guy to dial without feeling like he's about to flip through an encyclopedia. "Her voice was humorless and deliberate, like a Vice-Principal," explained a Nerve "Date Machine" blogger. "I felt like we should have been talking about anthropology or bird migration."

Even if talk of animal behavior is your idea of foreplay, dispensing such knowledge in a soft whisper or sweet chatter will get his mind racing faster than any flight pattern.