Just Disappear: Why Saying Goodbye At Parties Is A Bad Idea
Often, going against stablished social rules is the best for everyone.
It is your best friend’s birthday.
You are at your long-time favorite bar with all his buddies that you love (and those you don’t love so much).
The young waiter is bringing tequila shots. Everyone is going wild. You planned to go running the next day first thing in the morning. You double-click your phone. It’s 11:30 pm.
A drunk needy guy you barely know starts a nonsense conversation about politics with you. He spins around his axis as the talks and holds your shoulder whenever he needs help to stay on his feet.
You want to leave so bad.
Your best friend comes back from the toilet. Hooks you around his arm and tells you how much love he has for you. Finally, he lets you know the next round of tequila shots is on its way.
11:45 pm
What do you do?
To Be Altruist and Risk To Look Selfish
If you asked me one year ago, my answer would be straight as an arrow:
Sure I will stay, it’s my best friend!
Maybe you also have this “fellowship” value deeply rooted in your character. For me, my true friends are sacred, and sacrifices like that were part of the package.
Even though that’s beautiful in speech, in real life doesn’t tend to work so well.
The way I approach it now is not that pretty at first sight but makes everyone way happier:
In that situation, I would probably smile at the spinning drunk guy grab my phone, and pretend I had a phone call. I would calmly walk in the direction of the door while calling my Uber and leaving.
That’s the “Evanesco Rule”.
Evanesco is the vanishing spell used in Harry Potter. If wizards have a complicated spell to do it, why wouldn’t we do it so easily?
After playing the Evanesco, I would be in bed by midnight. By 7:30 am that beer I toasted with my friend would have been evaporated in sweat and my energy super high for the day.
This is not a popular choice tough. These are the reasons I changed my behavior for good:
You Don’t Say Goodbye For Politeness, But For Ego
When kids, we were taught to greet and say goodbye to everyone.
Even though that’s in general good advice, it doesn’t apply to all scenarios.
In the described scenario, saying goodbye to everyone would be very selfish.
Even though you weren’t in the same frequency, the spinning drunk dude and others were having a blast.
If a snobby one comes to each one of them and says goodbye it drops the place’s energy drastically.
Those are the reasons you shouldn’t do it:
Kill The Vibe
Killing the vibe makes people feel “guilty” because they are not as busy as you are.
Look Snobbish
You look snobbish because people will ask why you’re leaving and you will answer “to go running” or something cocky like that. Both of you will feel weird.
Make Drunk People Proactive
Drunk people will hold you by the neck and try to convince you to stay in a very unpleasant way (with very high success rates).
Ok, but you might be asking:
What about the “fellowship”? We watched Happy Potter together when kids, one cannot abandon each other in celebrations like that. If it was with me I would feel bad.
Your “Bad Vibes” Will Do No Good
You don’t want to be there anymore.
Since you are doing something you don’t want to, you are bad vibes, even though you try to disguise it with a yellow smile.
If good vibes and bad vibes were points in a match, you would be scoring the team down.
Standing there like a totem, an amulet, will do no good for them or you.
Only Care About The Greetings
Greetings are awesome.
If you really like the person and you haven’t seen each other for a while, the greeting moment is where you show how much you care for each other.
This alone makes goodbye unnecessary. Always leave with a good impression, why risk compromising it?
A True Best Friend
This was the hardest pill for me to swallow, but also the most important and liberating.
If I am a good friend I must be there for the people I care when they need the most.
If I’m losing precious time in places I don’t wanna be, I’m not working on myself to be the best I can be.
If I’m not the best I can be when the ones I care about need the most, I won’t have my best to offer, but my worst, which was encouraged by them.
To provide this kind of help, you must be strong mentally, emotionally, and materially.
Hard times require hard people.
When they go into real trouble, they have an extraordinary friend to rely on.
Friendships built solely by tequila shots use the “Evanesco Rule” themselves and vanish when those hard times come.
You are a kind of insurance. Infinitely more valuable than a few more hours at the bar.
Conclusion
The “Evanesco Rule” has been working very well for me.
Yet, it probably makes more or less sense depending on the cultural and personal context you’re in.
Still, I believe questioning these kinds of small social rules and approaching other angles is quite liberating.
Before practicing it, I could not imagine that something as little as skipping goodbye at social events would have such a positive domino effect on my life quality.
Hope it does the same for you!
