A few years ago, I was on a Zoom call with a friend, and he ended the conversation rather abruptly.
But there was something unusual about the way he did it. It was a sharp and decisive ending, yet it felt better to receive than many perfectly timed polite ones.
It was a big “a-ha” moment for me because I often found myself staying in conversations longer than I wanted to, looking for an out.
And so from that moment on, I started practicing what he did. It solved the issue almost overnight.
I’m not talking about the kind of conversations where you’ve already explicitly told someone you’re not interested and want to be left alone, yet they keep ignoring your boundary . That’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.
I’m talking about moments—say, at a party, a conference, or when running into an acquaintance on the street—where a conversation was generally pleasant in nature but is no longer what you want to be doing, and the other party keeps bringing up new threads or asking new questions, which makes it feel hard to make a clean exit.
It can be a delicate thing because you don’t want to send any signal that you’re disinterested or bored with them, but you also don’t want to end up staying in the conversation out of politeness while quietly building up resentment that they’re not giving you a clean out.
The challenge is that, when we do this clumsily, the other person can feel rejected or cut off. Even though this is usually not what’s happening. It’s simply that for us, the momentum died down and we felt moved to go do something else.
I’ll share with you in a moment what he said exactly, why it worked so well, and what else I’ve since learned you can say to do this smoothly.
But first let me show you an interesting contrast between ways I have approached this in the past. Because it illustrates something we get wrong about these types of situations.
Nonverbal Hints
One thing I often used to do when I felt stuck in a conversation with someone and couldn’t find a clean moment to break it off without being rude, is nonverbally signal to them that I wanted to go somewhere else, while still staying with the interaction.
For example, I’d keep responding to their words but I’d slowly open up my body language more towards the rest of the room, glance away a bit more often, and respond with conclusive phrases rather than opening new threads.
This isn’t something I did in a calculated or conscious way, it’s simply what I did. And if you’ve ever done it before, you may already know that it doesn’t work.
Because the signal we send when we do this is contradictory. We keep continuing the conversation while our body signals something else. It lacks congruence, and if the other person is a little socially anxious or self-conscious (who isn’t), it can trigger a stress-response where they subconsciously try to pull you back in and keep you there.
Which is the exact opposite of what we want.
Bizarre Excuses
When I was 20, my best friend and I had an ongoing social exploriment about leaving conversations.
We created a fictional person called Bert, which we would always refer to as the reason to leave
Initially, we’d simply say things like “I’m gonna leave though. Bert invited me for dinner.”
Despite living in a place where the local community was pretty tight-knit, no one ever asked us who Bert was or so much as raise an eyebrow about one of us leaving mid-hangout or mentioning him.
So we cranked up the exploriment a notch: We’d still use him as our alibi to end any conversation we felt stuck in, but the actual reasons we cited would be nonsensical. The kind of thing you wouldn’t have to leave for.
Lines like:
- “Well. Gotta go now. Bert bought a new painting.”
- “That’s funny. Anyway, Bert got a haircut. So I’m out.”
- “Let’s finish this another time. My friend Bert went to France.”
We’d say these things in a casual, matter-of-fact tone. Much to our surprise, people generally did not notice the nonsense. What they would notice was the implied message (“I’m leaving, but it’s not about you, I have a reason.”).
They’d even respond saying “Oh no problem, I totally understand! Talk to you soon.” When there was nothing to understand in the first place!
In the final stage of the exploriment, we continued doing this but we took Bert out of the equation. Now all that’s left was nonsense. And we prided each other on the degree of nonsense we could say that still worked.
This time it turned out a bit different. Way more people did call us out and say “What do you mean, this makes no sense?” . But I kid you not, more than once, we said things like “Gotta run though, my dog ate my home work.” and people simply responded as if that was a normal thing to say.
In fact, we often parted ways with a noticeably pleasant feeling on both sides.
Why am I sharing this?
To alleviate some of your potential worries:
On one hand, we may want to find graceful ways to leave a conversation out of care for the other. On the other, we may partially be pressuring ourselves to do it “right”. To find the right things to say that is socially acceptable.
But that in itself can be what makes the exit feel awkward for the other person.
You see, my friend and I at 20yo, despite speaking complete nonsense, were doing 2 things right:
1) We cleanly and decisively stated the conversation was over for us. (The reason, as it turns out, doesn’t matter as much.)
2) In that very moment, our internal state was one of pure fun. Because we were playing around.
This second part is interesting, because that’s the feeling we transmitted while leaving. A feeling of fun.
Whereas, if we feel struggle, awkwardness or shame while leaving a conversation, that’s the vibe the other person gets from us while we leave.
Now let’s rewind a little to the person that cut our Zoom conversation short.
What did he say, and what’s the vibe he gave me?
Things to Say to End a Conversation?
The exact thing my friend said was this:
“Well, I enjoyed this moment with you. And I’m starting to feel like this conversation is coming to a close on my end.”
Now, this is a long line, and I’m sure that if you were to practice copying it verbatim, it wouldn’t work.
Because it’s about the attitude behind it.
Yesterday, at a party, someone ended a conversation with me by looking me in the eyes, smiling and saying “It was nice speaking with you. Cheers!” and leaving.
Same feeling. But again, it’s not necessarily about what he said. He could have mentioned Bert if he wanted to. It’s about the attitude. I’m just giving you the lines too so you have something to hold on to.
The reason these exits feel so graceful is because the vibe they transmit is one of love for everyone involved:
1) I honor the time we shared.
2) I honor myself by not staying in a conversation longer than I want to.
3) I honor you by telling you this clearly.
If number 3 doesn’t connect for you. Think of it this way: If we avoid telling the other person we want to end the conversation but they can pick up on it indirectly, what we are communicating is that we believe they wouldn’t be able to emotionally handle our honesty.
Saying it clearly and honestly doesn’t have to mean harshly. All it means is sharing your intent to leave.
Some things I’ve found myself saying, for example, are:
- “I’m noticing my attention keeps getting pulled in other directions. I’d rather be really with you than being half-present. So let’s pause it here.”
- “Hey, sorry for cutting this short abruptly. But I’d love to walk around at this part and go meet some more random people here. Catch you later!”
- “Thanks for this moment.”
And even:
- “Well, it’s been nice!”
Now you may wonder… what if none of that is honest? What if it hasn’t been nice?
You don’t need to mention it was nice at all! You don’t need to verbally thank them. Nothing is required but honoring the person and the moment you shared.
I have a friend that literally ends most of our hangouts with “Well…”
Still feels the same way.
Again, the words matter less than the attitude:
As long as, rather than being 1 foot in, 1 foot out, you:
1) Stay with the person while making your exit (rather than full, abrupt abandonement)
2) Energetically own your decision to leave (rather than staying with them longer than you want to, feeling annoyed about it and then leaving with a hint of resentment towards them)
3) Honor them and yourself in your heart.
But what if you can’t? What if that’s not how you feel?
Don’t worry, I got you.
How to End a Conversation When Feeling Awkward
There are a few ways to do this.
One way is to exaggerate the awkwardness of it all. Overemphasize it to the point where it’s almost comical, and possibly even relatable to everyone involved. Speak robotically, overact your anxiety or make extremely exaggerated body movements the way a sit-com character would.
A go-to Authentic Relating move, which I recommend if you can handle the vulnerability, is to reveal your experience while it’s happening:
“Something I struggle with is ending conversations. I really don’t know how to do this. Especially because we’re in the middle of it and I can tell there’s so much more to share.”
Now you can follow this up in a few different ways, depending on what you want:
You can use this opportunity to get better at it. For example, you might ask them:
“Have you ever struggled with this? Do you have any advice?”
…which not only continues the conversation a bit longer, but also helps you out.
Or you could say “I’m going to leave now. But since this is a hard thing for me to do. Would you be willing to do me a favor and tell me how this felt for you?” which gives you feedback.
If you know perfectionism or social anxiety is at play for you, you might try saying “Can we agree to end this imperfectly?” and watch what happens. This can help you become more okay with the messiness.
Speaking of messiness, one important thing to keep in mind here is that there is no right way to do these things.
All you can do is do what feels right for you, notice how others respond, and respect them in your heart.
What you can’t do is guarantee their response or control how they feel about what you did. And that’s a good thing.
Just imagine a world where people could pick up a phrase from a blog post and consistently say it to mindcontrol you.
Exactly.
Better to leave with a bit of social uncertainty and just focus on treating ourselves and others well.
Context also matters. And the more messy a context is, the less your own messiness feels like a mess.
What do I mean with this?
If you’re in a chaotic context with lots of different people socializing, I find that surprisingly often, you don’t need to say anything. If it’s a group conversation you’re losing interest in, and the context is you can just get up and leave. You might give a little bow or wink, if you want to.
On the other end of the spectrum are situations like you being the host of an event and a particular guest keeps hogging you for conversation, or you going to a place with one specific person that doesn’t know anyone there.
In the first example, you ideally end the conversation by also introducing them to someone you think they’d hit it off with. Rather than just leaving.
In the second, there is an implicit expectation of the 2 of you sticking together as a “homebase” so in that case, rather than leaving the other person stranded, the skill to learn is how to keep the interaction interesting and alive for both of you.
…which is a topic for another day.