Chris Colin, co-author of What to Talk About: On a Plane, at a Cocktail Party, in a Tiny Elevator with Your Boss’s Boss has simple suggestion for extricating yourself from a small-talk conversation you no longer what to have.
From Atlas Oscura:
“Whether you’re having a lovely conversation or a crappy one, I think that the way to get out of either is identical,” he says. “My approach is to look them in the eye with a big smile and say, ‘It’s been so nice talking with you.’ And then you just do a hard pivot and you walk away.”
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If you are hereby emboldened to try Colin’s approach, note that the technique needs to be deployed with appropriate warmth and congeniality.
“What has to go with it is being a nice and decent person,” says Colin. “When you say ‘It’s been nice talking to you,’ you should probably mean it, and you should communicate that with your eyes and your smile and all that stuff. If you do that, then I think it’s okay.”