Ah, yes. Goodbye talkers. People that I frequently run into on a daily basis as an apartment maintenance technician for a property management company. Why didn’t Seinfeld do an episode about goodbye talkers? He covered the close talker, which is one of my favorite episodes. 
If you’re not familiar with what a goodbye talker is, then let me explain. They’re people that say goodbye to you, and then start talking again for another 15 minutes. Then when they’re done talking, we exchange goodbyes again, and then they start another conversation! What the hell?! Is it a mental disorder?
One winter afternoon I was sitting in a conference room at Average Joe Records in Nashville, Tennessee, chatting with a D.J. that invented the Red Bull can. Somehow the topic switched to Ted Bundy, the infamous serial killer. Rusty, a sound engineer for the band that I was in at the time, used to hang around him. This was when Bundy lived in Tallahassee, Florida, our home town. After telling us all about how creepy Bundy was, he told a story that really stuck with me. That story was about how he and a friend were sitting in a car talking with Bundy one day. After they exchanged goodbyes and started driving away, Bundy was running beside the car and talking again. He started another conversation! Unbelievable! I remember thinking in my head, “So Bundy was a goodbye talker.” Maybe it is a mental disorder. Do goodbye talkers have serial killer tendencies?!
To be honest, I don’t remember this ever being an issue while I was growing up. Have I just never encountered a goodbye talker until now? Have I never noticed it? Or has this problem just cropped up within the last 10 years? Is our society becoming so narcissistic that people feel like they can’t stop talking about themselves after a cordial goodbye? I’m totally flabbergasted.
Are you a goodbye talker and don’t know it? How can you tell if you’re a goodbye talker? Here’s 5 ways to tell if you’re a goodbye talker:
1) Do you say goodbye to someone and then stand in a doorway with the door wide open talking again while mosquito hawks and other unidentified bugs fly into someone’s home or business? If yes, you’re a goodbye talker.
2) Do you say goodbye and then start another conversation while you stand out of the sun in the shade talking to someone that is standing in the hot sun, obviously annoyed? If yes, you’re a goodbye talker.
3) Do you walk or run beside a car talking while someone is driving away (ahem…Ted Bundy)? If so, you’re a goodbye talker.
4) Do you feel no compassion as you ramble on while someone is holding a fussy child or a heavy package after you’ve exchanged 3 goodbyes? If yes, you’re a goodbye talker.
5) Do you strike up another conversation after a 4th goodbye and the other person’s back is facing you walking away? If so, yep…you’re a goodbye talker.
If you answered yes to any of these, don’t panic. I have a tip that’s going to help you out. After you say goodbye to someone and another subject pops in your head, just let it go. Just let it go! Save it for the next time you see that person. If you feel like you have to get it out or you’ll forget, then write it down. If you can’t write it down and you do forget, then it probably wasn’t that important anyway. Just let it go.
Look, I know some people are lonely and that they just need someone to talk to. Hey, I’m all ears most of the time. As a maintenance technician, it’s part of my job to be friendly and to lend an ear to people I come across everyday. I know when someone’s hurting and needs someone to talk to. Those people usually know when the conversation has ended. But I have zero patience for goodbye talkers. They’re just plain rude in my opinion. Goodbye talkers aren’t lonely and needing to get things off their chest. They’re know-it-all’s that want to jabber and ramble on about themselves. Me, me, me, I, I, I, I.
The struggle is real. And my only answer in dealing with a goodbye talker is that you have to toughen up and get a little rude. You have to turn and walk away. Leaving the goodbye talker in their woven tapestry of blabber. Yep, that’s all you can do. Say goodbye, turn, and walk away after the first and only goodbye. If you’re just too nice and can’t be mean, then I have no answer for you. You’ll just have to stand there and deal with it. God bless you, nice person. And may God have mercy on your soul.
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