I'm gonna let you go
A friend was over a few nights ago after dinner and we got into a strangely involved conversation about the practice of ending a telephone conversation by saying some variant of "I'm gonna let you go."
I was sharing my observation, having relocated to New England from the Midwest a little over two years ago now, that folks here on the East Coast seem a touch more ... abrupt. Fewer little social niceties. A childhood friend from Madison who went to college in New York asked me, shortly after moving, "don't you love the East Coast? Less fakey niceness." Maybe I was just more steeped in it, having lived in flyover country for a much bigger chunk of my life, but I sorta miss the fakey niceness. I long for the cashier at Walgreens to say something to me, even if it's just the amount she expects me to pay.
I was illustrating this absence of social pleasantries with the practice of ending a telephone conversation. Instead of saying directly "I have to go," you're easing your way out of the conversation, deferentially acknowledging that the time of the person on the other end is far more precious than your own (OK, OK, even as I write this, I become ever more aware of how obsequious it actually is). Carol had a completely different interpretation: 'let go' is used in the same sense as 'dispose of,' eg, "Pete, since the Dr. Scholl's account was lost on your watch, we're going to have to let you go." The subtext of ending the call with "I'm gonna let you go," then, being "I can't stand another minute of this tedium! Away with you!"
Anyway, let me let you go now. But what do you think? Yea, nay, or indifferent on I'm gonna let you go?
posted by Hannah L @ 5:58 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Nay. Because it's actually saying, I think I'm powerful enough to hold you in this conversation until such time that I choose to let you go, even though I know you'd rather have been doing something else with your time all along.
Or else, it's a just passive-aggressive way of saying, I want to go now. Which also sucks.
The fakey niceness scale: West Coast>Midwest>East Coast. I miss the non-fakey-niceness of the Midwest now that I'm back on the West Coast.
But cashiers should say something. Anything.
How about some none-fakey-Midwestern niceness/honesty like "I've got to go now, good talkin' to you, have a good one."
"Gonna let you go now" is really "I've got to go, have better things to do, so I'll pretend I'm doing you a favor by letting YOU go."
And why is this niceness Midwestern? Born, bred and raised as such and I know no other way.
Well, as a Midwesterner to whom long, open-ended telephone conversations give the heebie-jeebies, I think this whole thing can be avoided by establishing early in the call that there will be a specific ending. Like, I have to pick my kids up at school at three, or I have to get ready to go to work. These are the most common bona fide reasons I need to get off the phone, as a person who infinitely prefers to engage in lengthy chats f2f.
I don't remember when the whole "letcha go" thing made its way into the vernacular but since I sometimes use it...I guess I'm ok with it. But that's probably cos I am surprised anyone would want to talk w/me in the first place. :D In my book, it's really, "Ok, I've taken up too much of your time w/my blather, so...I can shut up now if you gotta hang up" sorta thang.
Say. How come you never call me anymore...?
Well, I guess we could just hang up on people. That would be a really clear message that "I'm gonna let you go"
what, not blog posts about your trip to Boston???
I have a problem being the one to end phone conversations, visits, letters. I tend to linger, I may be the first one to say Good bye on the phone, but never the first one to disconnect which probably drives anyone I talk to crazy - I can't be the one to hang up. I'm sure that reveals something about me - but I don't have a clue what it is - dont' want to look that deeply. Anyway, I like the way my father ends conversations - vistis, Until next time - he refuses to say Good bye as if it is an omen.
Well, I've found that saying 'you're boring the crap out of me so I'm hanging up now." tends to put people off.
It's not west, midwest and east. It's the south and from there nothing else matters!
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