When people ask me to say ‘hi’, it makes me want to go low

Whenever someone asks me to say hi to my wife and child for them at the end of a phone call, I never do it. I just don’t like the concept of third-party “hi”s. If they really want to say hi to them, they should text or call directly. Is this just me?
H.B., Yarra Valley, VIC

Credit: Illustration by Simon Letch

It’s not just you: many of us agree that the third-party hi is lazy and meaningless and annoying and should be banned from conversational wind-ups. Someone foists one on you and now you’re expected to do all their hi-work for them. You have to carry that “hi” around in your head for hours, days, weeks, until you bump into the designated recipient – and if it’s a multiple-third-party hi to family members or work colleagues or mutual friends, it could take years to get through everyone. And you have to deliver the hi with feigned enthusiasm, along with a complicated backstory about where the hi came from and a detailed rundown about the welfare of the hi-bestower because it’s suddenly all about them. And do you get thanked for your work?

No, the hi-bestower gets all the praise, all the “Awww, that’s so nice!”. You get nothing, not even a three per cent Deliveroo tip.

And then the designated hi-recipient may choose to send back a reciprocated third-party hi, which means you have to store another hi in your head until the next time you speak to the original hi-bestower; you’re working full-time now, seven days a week, doing other people’s socialising for them.

The third-party hi should be stamped out. Next time someone asks you to deliver one, just say, “Sure thing” and do nothing. Or be honest: say, “Sorry, you’ll have to do it yourself. I have enough trouble with first-party ’hi’s. I can’t take on any more.”

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