Beware of the Brexiter at dinner parties

Everybody knows that one person who spends more time saying their goodbyes at get togethers than actually sitting down to the meal. And as luck would have it, there’s an excellent term for them, writes Frances Whiting.

As a lifelong logophile, there is nothing I enjoy more than discovering a new word, phrase or word meaning.

Oh, I know, I’m a real live wire — you don’t want me at your party unless you want things to get really crazy.

But I do love words, and I take real delight in hearing new ones. Last week, when I actually was at a party, I discovered a new twist on a now familiar one.

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My friend and I were chatting to a bloke I hadn’t seen for some time who then said it was lovely to catch up but it was time for him to go home. We exchanged pleasantries, shook hands, and off he went.

Or so we thought, because about an hour or so later, I spotted him chatting in the kitchen.

“Isn’t that Thomas?” I said to my friend. “He said he was leaving ages ago.”

“Oh I know,” she replied, “he’s such a Brexiter”.

Everyone knows a Brexiter. Picture: Brian Lawless/AP

As in, Brexit: to say you are leaving, only to stay for a substantial amount of time afterwards.

Brexiter: One who says he is leaving but does not.

According to this definition, it occurred to me that I am a lifelong Brexiter — much to the frustration of my husband, who has spent many, many years cooling his heels at parties after I have announced that we have to leave because the fake babysitter has to go home.

Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never employed the fake babysitter excuse to leave a party early. Every parent has.

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“We’d love to stay but our babysitter, Mindy/Mandy/Katy/Stacey, has to be home by 11pm. She’s still at school so her parents don’t like her to be out too late.”

Once I have intoned the name of the fake babysitter with her fake curfew, imposed by her fake, uptight parents, it is time for us to go.

There’s always one person at the dinner party who takes too long to leave. Picture: Geoff Pugh/AFP

But it is a universal truth of life that the people you meet and the conversations you have on your way out the door will be far more interesting than those you had on the way in.

And so it is — at least according to husband John — that every time we leave somewhere, the leave-taking takes longer than a John Farnham farewell tour, a situation he used to refer to as “The Long Goodbye” but will now surely refer to as not exiting the party, but Brexiting.

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When we go out and I say to the host, “Thanks so much for a great night. I’d love to stay but Mindy our babysitter is in the middle of university exams and we don’t like to keep her out too late”, it translates as, “We’d love to stay but I really want to go home, put on my pyjamas, make a nice cup of tea and go to bed with a book”.

My husband then adds his thanks and goodbyes and says to me, “I’ll see you in the car in about an hour”, because it turns out I am a Brexiter to my bootstraps.

Frances Whiting is a U Mag on Sunday writer.

@franceswhiting