Parting Is Such Sustained Suffering

It's interesting how those who are one's friends in general can be one's enemies in particular matters. There will be those who will gladly die for you unless the sacrifice is necessary because you didn't like 'Freaks And Geeks'. Most friends will turn on you when you withhold yourself from them for any reason, even be it pure necessity.

I have written before about saying goodbye either in an ordinary social situation or in advance of a long period of separation. Each of those is difficult for me, but distinct from both is the goodbye said to someone who is hostile to the idea of one's leaving. Added to the necessity of suppressing my constant desire to keep the good times going is the challenge of confrontation, which may be of a jesting nature in part, but which is also in part serious. It's tough.

I try to resist being apologetic when I start heading out. Breaking up a group just large enough to play some particular game is hardly a severe offense, particularly when it happens well into the wee hours of the morning. It seems to me very reasonable to say fair well at four in the morning, and yet a case which can seem very compelling to the inebriated is made that leaving at such a time exposes you as staid and overly responsible.

You just have got to be firm and consistent. They're going to be coming at you over and over from different angles, adding enticements and scourging chastisements alike. The impulse will be to cave for fear of spoiling the friendship or creating heat that will take time to die down (In sobriety, there might well be no such impulse, but such is never the condition this happens in). In truth, the discord will likely never be spoken of, and I daresay that you will accrue respect for your boundaries that make it necessary less often to expend effort in defending them.