This Is a Book - Demetri Martin [58]
Goodbyes
I am bad at goodbyes. It’s a problem I’ve had for as long as I can remember.
My parents once told me that even before I could talk I had trouble with goodbyes. As a baby, when someone said goodbye to me, I would stare back at them and loudly fill my diaper as I crawled onto their lap.
When I was a toddler my parents began to put me in the basement whenever it came time to say goodbye. If they didn’t, when somebody said goodbye I would panic, do a little dance, and then run full-speed into the wall. I don’t remember doing this. I was too young. But the permanent marks on the wall (and on my head) are pretty good evidence that this happened.
My mother and father tried to explain away my goodbye difficulties as a phase, but things only got worse when I entered elementary school. I became even more agitated during goodbyes, often yelling directly into people’s faces and then breaking down in tears.
By the time I got to high school, I had developed a full-blown problem. If someone even uttered the word “goodbye” I would tackle them. I earned a reputation for being not only clingy but also “holdy” (because once I had the person on the ground I would hold them as hard as I could).
When I left for college I didn’t know how to say godbye to my family, so I just snuck out of the house the night before while everyone was sleeping. I think my parents understood that I needed to do that, even if they were a little hurt by it. Unfortunately, I somehow managed to ruin that goodbye after I ran into our dog, Buster, on my way out of the house. Saying goodbye to Buster proved to be so difficult that I ended up throwing him directly at my parents, who were sleeping.
It’s strange that I am so bad at goodbyes. I mean, no one else in my family has a problem with them. I have an aunt who has trouble with “see you soons,” but that’s about it. What’s even stranger is that I’ve always been very good at hellos.
If I’m meeting someone for the first time I can simply say “Hello.” No problem. And I can also change it up pretty easily if the situation calls for it. For example, if I’m meeting an attractive woman for the first time I’ll say, “Helll… llloo” in a very seductive way as I look her body up and down and slowly walk around her. Incidentally, in my experience it’s amazing how many women are bad at hellos, often turning a hello immediately into a goodbye right after a man has skillfully greeted and circled them. But I guess that’s no surprise when you consider how stuck-up a lot of women are.
Anyway, I thought that waving might be a good way to get better at goodbyes, so I focused on that for a while. But even waving presented challenges. Sure I can easily wave hello (I mean who can’t?) but when I try to wave later on in the conversation, as a goodbye, I get tripped up and just end up saying “hello” again.
Sometimes, to avoid the inevitable awkwardness, instead of saying goodbye I’ll just keep the conversation going. Then I don’t have to deal with the goodbye at all. That’s not always the best tactic, though. I once ended up getting married because of it. When the relationship finally did end, the best I could do was “toodles.” Man, that definitely did not help things when our divorce went to trial.
I saw a therapist for a while. Whenever I went to see him we would stand in his office and say goodbye to each other for the entire session, which inevitably put a lot of pressure on the end of every session. It often made leaving his office very confusing. Part of the problem, he told me, is that I suffer from what is called “separation anxiety” coupled with a more serious condition called “separation aggression.”
While therapy didn’t cure me, it did help. I got pretty good at saying other things instead of “goodbye,” like “I’m going over there now” or “I am not going to stay here anymore.” I learned that if I make an announcement about the next thing I’m going to do, that works quite well (i.e., “I am now going to get into this taxi” or “I’m going to go into that bathroom now and take a dump”).
Part of the