The Science of Politely Ending a Conversation | Hacker News Reader

The Science of Politely Ending a Conversation

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102 pointsKhalilK35 comments

I think they overly downplay the effectiveness and efficiency of vanishing. I used to work with a VERY polished salesman, who was the king of making everyone feel at home at his events. He was an absolute gentleman. But you knew he would disappear without saying a word at the end of the night. There would be a car waiting for everyone that needed it, but he wouldn't say Goodbye. Nobody faulted him for it.

On the other extreme... I went to a political fundraiser where it was clear the politician worked the room like a, well politician. He made everyone feel important and listened to. After he had done his once-over, he announced, "Thank you all for coming. I apologize for leaving abruptly, I have to go an meet my mom for dinner." I was stunned at how smooth he was.

The unannounced exit is also known by the slang terms "ghosting", "Irish goodbye", and "French leave".

I'm not altogether certain that you could place it at a fixed position on the "appropriateness" axis. It would probably depend largely upon the number of people in the social environment, and as such, the one-on-one conversation experiment would be the least appropriate situation in which it could possibly be used.

The politician in your example used both a closing statement and an excuse to disengage, the two strategies with both high politeness and high efficiency. That shows a very high level of social intelligence.

I was in awe of him. And thought, "That's how and why he got elected." :-)

I'd say it's an entirely different thing to vanish from an event than to vanish from a conversation.

Vanishing from an event early can be seen as considerate: you don't want to spoil other people's party mood with your goodbyes and by having to decline the invitations to stay a little longer or to join an afterparty. You just vanish and let others party on. The more alcohol is involved, the less anyone even notices.

But vanishing (walking away) from an active conversation without any concluding ritual or external interruption is just perceived as rude.

In the UK we have "right, I'll let you get on" like you are doing them a favour.

Its not just a Britishism. Its identified in the master's thesis linked to in the article [1] as a form of "turning the table" which "seem[s] to place the onus of ending the conversation on the conversational partner." (pg 63)

[1] http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=405...

I am a french speaker and I ended up going with a slight variation :

    "Right|Okay, I have to leave you (now)+."

In french it implies something like "I wish I could go on but alas I am obliged to take care of something else right now".

Which is why getting tone right in a foreign language is next to impossible. I'm guessing you're translating from "il faut que j'y aille" which is politer in French, thanks to the use of the subjunctive. In English though, without this grammatical tone-setter, you've basically just told someone that you have something that you consider more important than them. Sometimes that can work, especially when the other person isn't expecting your undivided attention, but other times, not so much.

"Il faut que j'y aille" could translate -- very, very loosely -- as "I gotta go because I need to take care of this thing" or something to that order. It's not so bad imo -- in fact, it uses because, which is a good thing if social psychology is anything to go by (e.g. the xerox experiment).

No, "il faut que j'y aille" has no "because" in the sentence. It translates literally to "I have to go", but it's a politer formulation that the English translation might suggest.

One could also translate it as "ah, a duty calls me away" or "ah, I have an obligation I must attend to".

I use the "ah" to try to capture the tone and gestures that usually accompany "if faut que j'y aille", a sort resignation and regret. A fiction recognized by both speakers.

edit: I just realized that there might be some confusion: I would not use the English `I have to leave you now` sentence in an actual English conversation. That was an approximate translation of the French sentence I use in French conversation (I got carried away with the line of thought `oh! that's how I do it in my language` when reading `britishism`).

> Which is why getting tone right in a foreign language is next to impossible.

Absolutely right. This really is a blind spot that I am cruelly reminded of every time I find myself in an oral actual conversation with an English native speaker.

> I'm guessing you're translating from "il faut que j'y aille" which is politer in French, thanks to the use of the subjunctive.

I usually formulate it like this:

    Je vais devoir|dois vous laisser (maintenant).

    Je vous laisse.

The last one is really good when you feel the other person doesn't know how to leave the conversation.

> In English though, without this grammatical tone-setter, you've basically just told someone that you have something that you consider more important than them. Sometimes that can work, especially when the other person isn't expecting your undivided attention, but other times, not so much.

Indeed, the previous example I gave could also be very harsh when spoken a certain way.

I sometimes add a `because|parce que` and a reason but I am more often than not under the assumption that the other person will think I am making up excuses which would be even ruder.

Also a Lord Vetinari trick from the Discworld universe: "Don't let me keep you."

"When Vetinari considers the meeting ended, he usually dismisses his visitors with the phrase "don't let me detain you." The inherent implication being that he just might if they let him."

This begs for clarification. Lord Vetinari considered ruthless patrician and was prepared for this role at assassins school. Without healthy dose of fear and respect this phrase might come off as condescending.

that one always annoys me. i have no objection to your leaving, but don't act as though i was anxious to see you off (even if i was, i would hope i concealed it well!)

On a somewhat related note, when you have the time, you can sometimes yield dividends by not ending the conversation at an early point.

A 10 minute conversation can teach you a lot or even earn your some goodwill.

Good point. I think I've gotten to the point of too habitually keeping conversations short. But really, a bit of a longer conversation is probably more healthy and valuable to me than seeing another reddit post or w/e else I'd do with those few minutes.

I'm pretty bad at this. I lose patience quickly when people don't get the hint that it's time to end the conversation. In these cases I usually just say I have to go to the bathroom or make a call and don't come back.

Regarding the plot towards the end of the article, what does "efficiency" mean? Surely "vanishing" while the other person is still speaking is the fastest way to end a conversation for the least effort.

Based on the other points, I'm guessing it relates to expenditure of time and effort on behalf of the speaker.

Vanishing requires you change location, whereas the more "efficient" rudeness would hopefully make the other person leave instead. Note that "non-responsiveness" is the least efficient, because I suspect the most likely response is for someone to keep questioning why you're not responding, wasting time. With that said, "vanishing" would almost certainly be the most efficient on a phone call, as it's just hanging up.

Fair enough, I was thinking of situations where the conversation wouldn't be held in your own space. In which case, changing location is something you would've had to do anyway.

I just really like the sheer surrealness of ending a conversation by walking off mid-sentence.

My success at ending conversations successfully greatly improved once I took formal training in personality types [1] Stick a dozen or two in a room and get a good facilitator to explain how others are. Then you will become so much better at knowing how to end a conversation, or even better, when you should not even bother entering in one. Thinkers; Deciders; Sensors; Feelers, in my learning sessions.

As a boss, I told everyone that under stress, I am a huge decider. Don't waste my time with conversation; get to the point. But under normal conditions, I am extremely verbose.

I think the "science" part of the article is good, as any formula can help when needed. But I sum up what I think my conversation partner is (thinker, decider, sensor, feeler) so I know how to end the conversation.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_type

I used to have long chats on the phone with an EE consultant friend. He was unmarried and lonely and would just never get off the phone. Whatever I said ("well, have a nice day" or some such), he would quickly interject "so tell me what your plans for the holidays are" or some similar opening to keep the conversation going. I found that the only way to end the conversation was to say "I have to go" and he would immediately terminate the call. Weird. He didn't take to email when it became prevalent, so we just don't keep in touch anymore.

Aaaaaanyway...

This brings to mind a conversation I once had with a smart, young female programmer with a playful sense of humor.

Me: I have a meeting.

Her: yeah, right.

Those were fun times.

What does being young or female have to do with it?

Perhaps the person in question was young and female. :) Does the above comment offend you? It was a story, not a generalization, from what I can tell. (It seems to me that people are too easily offended sometimes.)

but why those attributes and not race or height or credit score. not to make too big a deal of it but it's interesting to note which attributes are considered notable/identifying.

The examples you've provided cannot be immediately distinguished just from talking to a person.

Additionally, these are two traits that are very identifiable - they're broad definitions that only separate people into two groups. Young implies younger than the OP (the other option being old), female is one of two groups the vast majority of the population fits into.

When I go to the beach and don sunglasses to mask my otherwise creepy leering behavior, the two adjectives that most precisely describe the people I ogle are "young" and "female".

And I most certainly do not prefer to stare at Powerpoint/Keynote/Impress slideshows as someone drones on about goals and metrics.

While the preferences that govern attraction are a bit more varied, the propensity for men to enjoy the company of women who are obviously of reproductive age is literally the sole foundation for huge swaths of the advertising industry. It cannot be overridden by political correctness or gender-equality progressiveness. This is such a deeply entrenched fact of human interaction, that one can make jokes about it in the right situation, without any prior setup.

And when someone does, it is acceptable to laugh, rather than to question the premise.

They were flirting.

> What does being young or female have to do with it?

I'd like to explain, but I have a meeting to get to.

I, TOO, HAVE SPOKEN TO A GIRL.

Geeze, no need to shout!

This is the nerdyist comment on HackerNews, congratulations sir.

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