My coworkers boyfriend is iconic in my eyes:
When he feels like he socialized enough he just says goodbye and goes to his workshop. In his own home. He just leaves them then and there and they figure it the rest.

I think that’s hilarious and awesome :D

It’s a funny thing because it’s in everyone’s best intrest to have a clear signal when someone has had enough of socializing but no one has the balls to just say that.

The slapping of the knee and the “Welp!” is just the start of the goodbye ritual. It only takes another hour, (sometimes longer), for the guest to actually go away. Since all parties will stand and visit in the home and then visit all the way to the car as everyone very slowly makes their way to the vehicle.

Once the guest actually gets into the car, you can then begin the final 30+ minute ritual of the leaving. And as the guests finally leave, the hosts must follow them down the driveway waving until the guests are out of sight.

(This is the abbreviated version)

My last partner used to just cheerfully say ‘Get out of my house.’ which worked well enough.

But you don’t actually head out at that point, that’s just the time you start to reckon whether you outa.

As a midwesterner, it is unethically misleading to suggest this level of efficiency to an outsider. While, yes, the welp-knee-slap is a polite and unmistakable sign that the life of this social interaction is coming to an end, that does not mean that interaction is over. The journey from “welp” to guests pulling out of your driveway can be anywhere from a 5 to 45 minute trek of baby-stepping toward the door, off the porch, down the footpath, to the car, all while tying up loose ends in conversations, corraling children (and toys, diaper bags, electronics, etc.), planning follow up meetings, last minute inquiries into various family members’ health, work and relationship status, discussions over the weather and road conditions, misremembered jokes someone heard from a guy at work, repeated offers of food or drink for the road, and assurances that either they’re not too tipsy to drive or that they “actually drive better with a buzz” while turning down offers to sleep it off… their kids may very well sit belted in the car longer while waiting for the adults to stop talking at the car door than they will for the entire drive home. The Midwestern goodbye may be one of the least efficient goodbyes every devised by man.

This is how you get out of a social situation in England too, except you say “well”.

In Canada, especially in the rural parts, it is a ceremony that lasts on average about one hour and takes place from the kitchen table / living room couch to the end of the driveway. And there is a 20% chance that the farewell may be cancelled and the visitor invited to stay for supper or to spend the night, where the ritual will be repeated again the next day.

Okay but if we’re talking about Midwesterners, they’re not leaving yet. There’s gonna be another 20 minutes of conversation while everyone is standing, then they’ll head over to the door for another 20 minutes conversation, once the door is open they’ll stand on the front porch and talk for another 20 minutes.

From Texas, we do this too, but we combine it with the wrap up conversation, then the standing by the door conversation, then the standing by the car conversation.

There are so many ways to do this all over the world!

How about

“We really should do this again sometime!” - but then both parties immediately notice that was slightly too forward and everybody makes an awkward dance to express “I didn’t mean to throw you out” and “No offense taken, really” …
Whatever the reasons, it always takes substantial time from the initial communication 'til the final closing of the front door and a heaved sigh on both sides of it.

Psych nurse protip: “I wanna be able to give this my full attention so we’re gonna put a pin in this and circle back.” Then you literally just leave, possibly mid-sentence if they’re really that hyperverbal. Some acutely manic patients are so hyperverbal that I have to take their temperature under their armpit because they literally cannot keep their mouth closed around the probe.

Easy…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._45_(Haydn)

Haydn’s patron Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy was resident, together with all his musicians and retinue, at his favorite summer palace at Eszterháza in rural Hungary. The stay there had been longer than expected, and most of the musicians had been forced to leave their wives back at home in Eisenstadt, about a day’s journey away. Longing to return, the musicians appealed to their Kapellmeister for help. The diplomatic Haydn, instead of making a direct appeal, put his request into the music of the symphony: during the final adagio each musician stops playing, snuffs out the candle on his music stand, and leaves in turn, so that at the end, there are just two muted violins left (played by Haydn himself and his concertmaster, Luigi Tomasini). Esterházy seems to have understood the message: the court returned to Eisenstadt the day following the performance.

German way:

Sooooo slaps hands on hips and stands slowly up

Be friends enough with people to tell them to fuck off before they give you a hug and leave just yo hang out again 20 years later

It’s what I do with all my friends

Some found it offensive how unfiltered I speak, and left, and that’s fine. If I couldn’t speak plainly around my friends I think I’d go insane.