"Irish" Exits, Ghosting, "French" Leave: Leaving Without Saying Goodbye

David Chang (0:00)

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Is the Irish goodbye disrespectful or actually the highest form of friendship?

Welcome to The Dave Chang Show, here with Christophe Yang. That's producer David. Today, we'll be doing a Moif, My Opinion is Fact, and I'm still not sure if it's okay to say this. I just don't know. In 2026, I've never looked it up. But is it okay to say Irish goodbyes? Is that even, is that like?

Chris Ying (1:14)

Oh, dude, I'm out of here.

SPEAKER_3 (1:16)

I can't believe you said this. It's crazy.

David Chang (1:18)

I don't know. We don't know the history of it, but we're going to learn about it today because in honor of Irish goodbyes, I'm going to be making a beef and Guinness stew for our guests. Hopefully, it's going to be done before they sit down. This episode of The Dave Chang Show is presented by Vrbo Vacation Rentals. People are unpredictable, especially when you travel with them. Someone's in a mood, someone's hungry, someone didn't sleep. Something's going to happen. You can't be worrying about your vacation rental too. That's why when you book with Vrbo, Vrbo Care and 24-7 Live Support is built in. So if something's broken, not as described or just not right, Vrbo is there 24-7 to help. If you know, you Vrbo. Book today on the Vrbo app. Terms apply, see verbo.com/trust for details. So my wife and I were at like this invitation conference type of thing. A lot of our friends were there and came to the time that I'm always so excited about leaving. And she knows that I don't like saying goodbyes. She knows that my friends were involved in this whole thing, but I see them all the time.

And she was adamant that I go out of my way through the crowd of people and say goodbye. And she, I don't know why she even asked me this, because she knows what I'm going to say.

Doesn't matter. I see them all the time. They're not going to remember. It's like they're bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah or wedding. You never remember.

And if you do this, I was like, if we do this, we're screwed. We're going to go there. It's going to take 30 minutes to cut through the crowd and another maybe hour to come back, because now you have to talk to everybody. It's a trap. I think it's not something I like to do. I think that an Irish goodbye, that's what we're calling it. Maybe today we'll learn that you're not allowed to call it that anymore.

It is the best way to say goodbye to people that you love and that you're close with. I'm not saying this is a way to say goodbye to every instance, but if it's somebody you know well, they're not going to remember, you don't want to do this, so you should just get the fuck out of Dodge.

And if you're really good at this, you've parked your car or you've got all your logistics, you know, points of egress everywhere and you're out of there. It's very important to me.

Chris Ying (3:42)

Points of egress implies that it is an escape, just to be clear. You were escaping.

David Chang (3:46)

Well, it feels like that sometimes.

SPEAKER_4 (3:49)

Sure, you're escaping.

David Chang (3:50)

Anyway, I'm not really into goodbyes. I don't like them. There are very few times where I want to do them. They're usually bad. And I'm not trying to be an ungrateful guest. I will send a text. I'll send an email. I'll send, maybe I'll even send a card. Maybe I'll start doing that, a thank you card.

But for the most part, I will go and say thank you if it's somebody I don't know well. But I do that out of obligation, out of decorum.

Chris Ying (4:21)

But you're saying you do the Irish goodbye out of love.

David Chang (4:24)

Out of love.

I'm saving them time and they're saving me time. It's unnecessary. If I went to you and I said, thank you and goodbye, you're going to know exactly, right? If you and your wife hosted a party and it's like, we got to get out, it's like 10 o'clock. That's when I turned into pumpkin. We got to get the babysitter. Sure, sure, sure. We got to go. You know? And I'm already like, oh, we're going to be late.