I Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye

1. Go to a personal or professional event.
2. Start a conversation with someone you don’t know very well.
3. Have a chat.
4. Think, this is a nice person, perhaps we will chat again sometime.
5. Fail utterly at saying goodbye and stand there awkwardly for 4 minutes past the time where you should both have moved on to the dessert table with the chocolate cake.
6. Seriously consider moving to France.

I have this problem at every event I go to. I have no difficulty walking up to strangers and shooting the breeze. There’s always something interesting to talk about, especially if 1) they are passionate about a topic or hobby or 2) they have a good sense of humor. (By good, I mean meshing well with mine.)

You can say, “Well, nice meeting you,” or “Gosh, look at the time,” or “I won’t keep you,” but all those things come out blatantly false when I say them. Then, I feel transparently insincere and fear that the person that I’m talking to feels like I’m using any excuse to flee.

It’s not true – when I WANT to flee from a conversation, I just mickey finn their drink and sneak out with their wallet. But you can’t do that to everyone – chloral hydrate is cheap, but people get suspicious if they are always losing their wallet and repeatedly don’t remember the end of their conversations with you.

The most graceful networking goodbye that I’ve ever witnessed was actually by David Cutler and I hope that he doesn’t mind my mentioning it.

We were at a North Shore Web Geeks meet up, and had reached the end of our chat when he goes, “Hey, there’s someone you should meet,” or some such polite thing, and brings me over to another acquaintance, introduces us in such a way as to start off a new conversation, and unobtrusively wanders away.

The trouble with this approach is that you have to know enough people in the room to introduce them. And everyone I meet gives me the cold shoulder because either I don’t know them, have left them awkwardly in past conversations, or have their wallets.

So, help me out here. What do you do when the conversation is over, but you don’t have a David Cutler around and nobody’s quite smooth enough to pull off closure without that weird awkwardness? Should I just worry less and drink more at all social occasions?

I’d really appreciate feedback on this one – and the fun part is, whatever you suggest, I’ll try it in some forum, and post about how it goes.

Just to stave off the inevitable (I know you guys) growling and scratching inappropriately doesn’t go over that well, and biting creates more awkwardness than it alleviates. (Weird, I know.)

Breaking into song, dance, or rapid Italian curses also is out. But suggest something else, I’ll give it a whirl. And, (Narrows eyes and glowers over glasses frames) be helpful if you can, okay?