10 Ways to Know it’s Time to Leave
10 Ways to Know it’s Time to Leave
Recognize the signals that tell you it’s over, and then go
Posted May 24, 2016
Now imagine a situation at work where you’ve been called into the boss’s office to report on a new project you’ve been assigned. Your boss asks you what seems like an endless set of questions, and you do your best to answer them. Then the questions are over, close to an hour has gone by, and you imagine that you should offer your thanks, excuse yourself, and get up to leave. However, would that be rude? Shouldn’t your boss be the one to call the shots on when the meeting is officially over?
In a long-term relationship, it can be even more difficult to figure out when the good times have come to an end, for good. You and your partner are like a well-oiled machine, both taking care of your respective functions in the relationship, whether it’s household tasks or decisions about what to do with your time together. All this is well and good, but where has the excitement gone? Are you just staying with your partner out of inertia? Would someone else, or no one at all, be better for you?
There are many ways to find out how to make a good first impression to get a relationship, job, or business deal started on the right foot. There are far fewer guidelines for knowing how to make a good last impression by leaving at the proper time. Research on relationship endings tends to focus on how to recover from a breakup and move on rather than on how and when to make that ending start to happen.
When I delved into the scientific literature on the topic of “leave-taking,” I was surprised to find only a few articles specifically examining this key area of social interaction and nothing recent at all. In his famous book, Games People Play (1964), psychologist Eric Berne described such interactions as rituals, governed by a set of norms, but still subject to a variety of individual factors. Referring to this work, Purdue University’s Mark Knapp and colleagues (1973) expressed surprise that leave-taking has been so relatively neglected (and I might add, still is!). Either it’s completely unimportant and trivial, “a speck in the eye of the total process of human communication,” or representative of the “unique and terribly human interpersonal forces… unleashed when people say goodbye to one another” (p. 182). After investigating the “rhetoric” of leave-taking, Knapp et al. concluded that leave-taking is not a speck, but a torrent, in the landscape of human communication.
In the Knapp study, leave-taking was analyzed in an observational study in which the researchers rated behaviors of people saying goodbye either to people they did or did not know well, and those who were of the same or different status (professors talking to students or students talking to students). They counted such verbal behaviors as providing reinforcement (saying “uh-huh,” “sure,” “OK”) and nonverbal behaviors such as leaning forward, shaking the other person’s hand, and breaking of eye contact.
After categorizing the behaviors of 80 pairs of leave-takers, the Knapp et al team concluded that leave-taking falls into two categories: inaccessibility and supportiveness, each of which can be subtle or direct. To say goodbye properly, you want to indicate that things are over (inaccessibility) while still showing supportiveness (leaving on a positive note). They further noted that leave-taking is anything but trivial, and that these “little noticed, but highly potent interpersonal maneuvers” allow us to “structure and maintain our social contacts” (p. 198).
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At a deeper level, leave-taking can also tap into our worst fears of
being abandoned. Saying goodbye to someone you care about and who you
won’t be seeing much of in the future (if ever) can cause you to feel
panicky and alone. Being said goodbye to when you’re not ready for it
can, similarly, provoke deep sadness and dread. Attachment
theory is premised on the notion that how we react to leave-taking sets
as infants sets the pattern or model for all of our subsequent
relationships.It’s a shame that leave-taking has been so neglected in psychological research given the fascinating attention it received in the Purdue study and given its role in relationship theory. From your point of view, there are nevertheless helpful insights you can take from this work to benefit your own leave-taking interactions as shown by these 10 guidelines:
- Look at the clock without seeming obvious: If you know you only have a certain amount of time with someone, gauge the signals you send by mentally keeping track of the time. However, don’t look like you’re dying for the interaction to end by staring obviously at the clock as this sends unsupportive cues.
- Read the other person’s signals: See if the other person seems ready for you to leave so that you make it easy for that person to announce that things are over if that other person is in control (such as your boss). If you’re equals or more in control, see if you sense that the other person is winding down and ready to move on.
- Provide subtle nonverbal cues: You can provide subtle messages by changing your eye contact and bodily position, short of getting up and walking out when you’re ready to go. Give your partner time to get used to the idea that the leave-taking is about to occur.
- Don’t fidget ahead of time: Showing that you’re bored or distracted will signal unwittingly that you don’t support your relationship partner. Although you may feel ready to go in your own mind, and have decided you will do so, don’t make it a long drawn-out process.
- Make clear your reasons for ending: Let the other person know (if the other person doesn’t seem to want to leave) that you’ve got someplace else to go or another meeting or appointment. If you’re ending something more permanent, such as a relationship, don’t try to duck out of it without giving your partner some idea as to why.
- Be firm: Dragging out a good-bye will only make it more painful for the person you’re leaving behind. It’s also possible that the other person wants to go as well, and by agreeing that things are over, you’re showing more support for that person’s feelings.
- Keep it about you, not the other person: If you want to leave because you are, in fact, no longer interested, then explain the reason for bidding farewell to be something concerning you not that other person. As you get increasingly anxious about a party that is going on far too late, for example, let the host know that you’ve got to get up early and not that there’s anything wrong with the party.
- Be honest, within reason: If you are bored and that’s why you’re going, it won’t help to say so. However, if you are leaving because of a rational reason that won’t upset the person, you can state what that reason is.
- Respect the other person’s status: As demonstrated by Knapp and colleagues, status matters in leave-taking. Someone of higher status than you has the “right” to call an ending. If you do instead, it will make you seem rude or disrespectful.
- Signify support for the person you’re leaving: The most important conclusion from the Knapp et al study was that successful leave-taking allows everyone to feel good about the ending.
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Beginnings
are definitely more exciting than endings, but finding the best and
most humane way to end your interactions with others can help all
parties feel satisfied and fulfilled. “Leaving on a high note” isn’t
always possible, but it’s a goal that you can strive for in all of your
interactions.Follow me on Twitter @swhitbo for daily updates on psychology, health, and aging. Feel free to join my Facebook group, "Fulfillment at Any Age," to discuss today's blog, or to ask further questions about this posting.
Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2016
References
Berne, E. (1964). Games People Play. New York: Grove Press.
Knapp, M. L., Hart, R. P., Friedrich, G. W., & Shulman, G. M. (1973). The rhetoric of goodbye: Verbal and nonverbal correlates of human leave-taking. Speech Monographs, 40(3), 182-198. doi:10.1080/03637757309375796
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