One of the most annoying things about being at a large social gathering is extricating yourself from it in order to get home at a reasonable time. Of course, there are many ways of achieving this.
One effective method is doing the ‘group goodbye’, which involves you approaching a large circle of people at an event and doing a communal goodbye all at once so as to avoid having to individually hug every person on the way out as you make (let’s be honest) half-hearted promises about wanting to catch up for coffee in the future to find out how the kids are going.
Another effective method is to get so drunk that the bouncer kicks you out of the nightclub without any of your friends noticing, which is usually the preferred mode of exit for 18-year-olds wearing wraparound sunglasses and Tarocash shirts at the Spring Racing Carnival.
But, perhaps the most effective way of leaving a social event quickly and quietly is to just do exactly that. In fact, for many years, this has been called the ‘Irish goodbye’. According to Urban Dictionary, this refers to: “when someone makes an exit without advance notice or saying goodbye - thus avoiding displaying any emotion.”
Presumably, this is a homage to the stoic nature of the Irish, who only like to show emotion when river dancing or when a British monarch passes away.
The term ‘Irish goodbye’, though is now under threat with a new label for leaving events without farewells, called ‘smoke bombing’.
This practice refers to leaving a social event without letting anyone know and seems to take its name from the way magicians will often disappear from the stage in a cloud of smoke.
Though, unlike magicians who tend to then reappear at the back of the venue via a secret underground tunnel that passes underneath the audience, people who smoke bombs at social events simply go straight home and get a good night’s sleep.
According to research released by Uber Reserve, two in five Australians admitted to smoke bombing a social event, so we can only presume the other three in five had to stay because their partners were having a good time.
Not only that, 65% of Aussies admitted to fabricating excuses so that they could go home early.
It is worth noting that if you are going to choose this option, make sure you don’t use the same excuse multiple times on the same group of people. There are only so many times your grandmother can pass away unexpectedly before people’s suspicions are roused.
Interestingly, almost half (48%) of Gen Z Australians said that they preferred having a good night’s sleep over a “wild night out”, which presumably means that smoke bombing is a pretty common practice amongst that generation too.
This is actually expected, considering Gen Z was the generation that developed (and perfected) the art of ghosting people in relationships, which is the act of simply not responding to messages until the other person presumes you must have died.
So, basically, if you want to leave an event quickly and you can’t think of a good excuse, and you’re not drunk enough to be evicted by security, just… leave.
