1) If a guest is storming out of your party in anger, or you’re kicking them out for being a jerkface, a terse handshake or grudging wave goodbye is the maximum contact expected.
2) If a guest gives you a romantic vibe, and you want to make it perfectly but politely clear you don’t want to sleep with them, a handshake does the trick. Heads up, flirty guest: If the host shakes your hand goodbye, they’re not interested.8
Cheek Kisses
In parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, saying hello or goodbye involves a perplexing amount of cheek kissing.
Sometimes planting the lips right on the cheek. Sometimes placing cheek to cheek and kissing air. Sometimes one kiss. Sometimes one kiss for each cheek. Sometimes back and forth between both cheeks, twice, for a total of four. We have no doubt that right now, somewhere in Italy, a couple of impeccably dressed dudes, leaning up against their Vespas, between gorgeously cinematic drags off cigarettes which somehow don’t give them cancer, are perfecting the twenty-cheek kiss.
But those moves are for professionals. The rest of us are still coming to terms with hugs. So do the kissing thing if a guest starts it, but don’t initiate it, unless you’re keen to end the evening by accidentally cracking someone’s skull open, or by giving yourself whiplash.
AND FINALLY, A GOODBYE PRIMER
Speaking of Europe, you’ve likely heard of the French exit, a.k.a. the Irish goodbye, a.k.a. ghosting. It’s when a guest sneaks out of the party without telling anyone.
We don’t advocate this move, since one of the few tangible rewards a host gets for throwing a dinner party is a “Thank you” for a job well done. On the other hand, it does mean there’s one less guest with artichoke dip breath you have to hug goodbye.
In any case, as a host, you should be prepared for this and several other forms of potential guest exits.
The Jewish Goodbye—a.k.a. the Midwestern Goodbye: Wherein everyone at the party hugs each other goodbye, and then they all hang out on your front porch talking for another hour.
The Boston Goodbye: In which your drunk best friend hugs you goodbye, and then you both fall to the ground and start wrestling, and no one knows if you’re fighting or what.
The College Goodbye: While everyone’s at the front door hugging goodbye, a guest sneaks into the kitchen, steals back the unopened booze they brought to your party, and splits through the back door.
The Jar Jar Binks Goodbye: You hug everyone goodbye. Then you return to the living room to find that the most uninteresting guest at the party is still there, eager to hang out with you some more. No matter how many hints you drop, he fails to realize everything would be better if he were gone.
The British Goodbye: This is when you think a guest pulled an Irish goodbye on you, but it turns out they’re just passed out in the backyard.
The New York Goodbye: Five minutes before the party begins, a guest sends you a text saying she can’t make it, she knows she’s the worst, but let’s catch up soon.
The Los Angeles Goodbye: This is when two guests hug you and each other goodbye… and then realize their cars are both parked near each other. So they have to awkwardly walk two blocks together before hugging goodbye again.
Is everyone gone?
Smile.
Clean what you can.
Drink whatever liquid is left in any glass on your path to your bedroom. Sleep.
Wake up. Survey the wreckage. Take yourself to brunch.
