Understanding "mis-wanting": how to avoid confusing your likes with your wants and set appropriate life goals.

Hello again, dear reader.

Today's discussion should be very interesting; as we are going to discuss wants versus likes and the concept of "mis-wanting" I've been reading a lot lately about people with incredible lives. You don't like a real-life Indiana Jones or the guy that starts his own business out of his garage and makes millions or the guy that writes the Great American novel and self publishes it for the Amazon Kindle and becomes a world-renowned author. However, the more stories like this that I read, the more I started thinking about whatever happens to the guy did get everything he thinks he wants and realizes it's not all it's cracked up to be. Yes I know there are many fairytales, that discuss this sort of thing but you don't often hear real-life stories about the guy that won the lottery and then went broke. So I started wondering if this sort of "buyer's remorse" of wanting happens for a reason. And after doing a little research I discovered that it's because people get their "likes" and "wants" confused, which can lead to some interesting conundrums in life. So hopefully dear reader, is discussion will help you to clarify and understand the difference between "likes" and "wants" so that you can recognize when you are experiencing an episode of "mis-wanting"...


“In the world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” –Oscar Wilde


Have you ever wanted something really, really bad, but when you finally got it, you were left feeling kind of disappointed?
Maybe you thought changing jobs would make you happy, but it didn’t.
Or you thought you’d like living in another state, but ended up regretting the move.
Perhaps you sunk a bunch of money into a new hobby you were sure you’d love, only to abandon it after just a few outings.
Why do we experience these mismatches between what we think something will be like and the reality of it?
This misalignment is often the result of confusing our wants and our likes — a common mix-up that gets in the way of our making good decisions and finding real satisfaction.

The Difference Between Wanting and Liking

While we often use “like” and “want” interchangeably, in the realm of cognitive psychology, they’re two different things.
Wanting is simply the prediction that we’ll like something when we get it or experience it.
Liking is the good feeling — the joy and fulfillment — we get from doing or having something.
Wanting is based on guesses.
Liking is based on firsthand experience.
“I want to spend more time in the outdoors.” vs. “I like spending in the outdoors.”
If we want something, we figure we must like it — otherwise we wouldn’t have wanted it in the first place.
Yet our likes and wants are not always so neatly aligned: we often want things that we really don’t like. This is a phenomenon known as miswanting.

What Causes Miswanting?

Why do we miswant? Shouldn’t we know ourselves well enough to accurately predict when we’ll like the things we desire?
In a paper entitled “Miswanting: Some Problems in the Forecasting of Future Affective States,” psychologists Daniel Gilbert and his co-author Timothy Wilson (who I’ve had on the podcast), highlight several ways in which our likes and wants can become muddled and unhooked: 

Using Faulty Predictions

The Great Gatsby is basically a tragedy dedicated to this type of mis-wanting. Gatsby wanted to be with Daisy so very badly that he spent his entire life molding himself into the kind of man that she would want. When he finally gets her, the experience is completely underwhelming.

Sometimes the thing we imagine when we start strongly desiring something doesn’t match up with the thing we actually experience. Our predictions aren’t accurate.
For example, when Kate and I were first married, we decided to take a trip to Italy. We’re both big history and classics buffs, and we thought we’d really enjoy exploring Rome. In our heads we imagined ourselves freely wandering through a beautiful highlight reel of the ancient sites and paintings we’d seen online. The reality of the trip, however, involved a lot of being packed like sardines, waiting in lines, and shuffling through museums where we could barely get a look at the exhibits over the heads of our fellow tourists; it felt like being in a theme park, but with ancient relics instead of rides. I realized I had wanted to see the major sites, but I really, really didn’t like vacationing in places with big crowds.
We often mix up our wants and likes with bigger decisions as well. Some folks have an idea in the heads of what would constitute their dream job. They think it’d make them happier and more fulfilled than their current work. With some pluck and drive, they manage to quit their hum-drum corporate gig and start the job that lines up with their perceived passion.
At first, things are great. The natural excitement that comes with change and newness makes them feel like they made the right choice.
But after a few weeks, they start noticing annoyances they didn’t imagine when they were in the throes of a real good wanting. They didn’t foresee the late nights, having to worry about bookkeeping, or the annoying, high-maintenance clients they’d have to work with. From the outside, they saw only the fun and interesting highlights of the job, while being blind to the behind-the-scenes dead work that actually makes up the bulk of what they’ll be doing day-to-day.
Soon, these folks start second guessing their decision because they’re not as happy as they thought they’d be. It turns out they don’t much like what they very much wanted.

Having the Wrong Theory About Ourselves

But let’s say you have a complete understanding about the object or experience you want. So there will be no mismatch between what you imagine you’ll get and what you’ll actually experience. Can that always stave off mis-wanting?
Unfortunately, no.
Even if we know exactly what we’re getting, sometimes we have incorrect theories about how much we’ll like it.
This fact was demonstrated in a simple study that centered on snacks. Researchers asked subjects to plan a menu of snacks they’d receive on three consecutive Mondays. These folks knew exactly what kind of snack they’d be receiving; yet when they finally got it, they were still disappointed.
The problem was that the subjects tended to think that selecting a variety of snacks would make them happiest; their theory about themselves ran something like this: “I’m not a boring routine guy! Variety is the spice of life!” So instead of requesting the one snack they liked best for all three Mondays, they decided to select something different for each week. For example, even if a participant knew he loved pretzels, he only asked to receive them on the first Monday, while requesting a Snickers bar for the second Monday, and potato chips for the third. Yet when the candy bar and chips were set before him, he felt disappointed; he really wished he was getting pretzels again. Participants consistently mis-wanted, because they made a decision based on an erroneous theory about themselves.
There are things we’d like to believe about ourselves, and then there’s how we actually are.
In college, I really wanted to be the kind of guy who liked indie movies and only ate at ethnic and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. So that’s what I did. A few of the flicks I saw were indeed good; most I didn’t enjoy. And while I did find some great little restaurants, I also came to the point where I could admit that I really enjoyed going to Chilis too. I wasn’t as cool of a dude as I had wanted to think; but in accepting that, I was able to do more things that I actually liked.
It can be hard to deviate from cherished narratives and recognize that we don’t always like the things we wished we liked. And the consequences can be far more significant than needlessly avoiding eating Chicken Crispers.

Experiencing Emotional Contamination

Even if we know exactly what we’ll be getting with something, and exactly what we like, we’re still susceptible to mis-wanting.
This is because our feelings from liking one thing can “contaminate” our wanting of other things.
For example, let’s say you go on vacation to some exotic locale, and you feel incredibly relaxed and happy. You think to yourself, “I love this place! I need to move here permanently!” It seems like it’s the location itself that’s making you happy, but it may simply be the fact that you’re on vacation and away from work. Most everyone feels happier on vacation, no matter where they are. Yet the positive feelings resulting from the break “contaminate” your feelings about the place in which you’re taking it, giving you the sense you’d be happier if you lived there year-round.
Emotional contamination often happens with relationships as well. You might be dating someone, and at first think she’s really great; yet the happiness you feel is really springing from your excitement about being in a relationship, period. It’s broken a long drought, and you mistake the buzz of having a pretty gal like you, for you liking her back. This happens with wedding engagements that fall apart too; the couple feels really good about the whole thing at first, but their positive feelings are really arising from the idea of being engaged in general, rather than about their fiancé in particular.
As Dr. Gilbert notes, “feelings do not say where they came from, and thus it is all too easy for us to attribute them to the wrong source.”
Emotional contamination can happen with negative feelings, too. For example, you might be feeling down because you got passed over for a promotion. Your bud calls you and asks if you want to go to a basketball game that night. It’s the kind of thing you typically love doing, but the negative emotions you’re experiencing at the moment color your choice; you feel like you won’t enjoy the game because you’re feeling down about your bad day at work. The reality is that going to a basketball game to get your mind off things is probably exactly what you need to feel better.

How to Avoid Mis-wanting

So how do we make sure we go after those things that we really like, and don’t just think we like?
While it’s not possible to completely eliminate mis-wanting from our lives, we can take measures to reduce how often and to what extent it happens, particularly for wants that can have big-time ramifications in our lives like a job change or a move.
1. Don’t be afraid to embrace what you really like, even when it runs counter to cultural/familial expectations. In college I realized that I would probably like teaching best as a career. But such a path didn’t seem to have the kind of prestige and stability I felt was expected of me, and so I convinced myself that I instead wanted to be a lawyer and that I’d like legal work. Halfway through law school I realized I had mis-wanted, and royally shoulded on myself.
The story of the man-who-buries-his-passion-to-pursue-a-traditional-career has been a common morality tale for a century now. And not falling into that trap is still something to watch for. Yet today, it’s equally “countercultural” to accept the fact that you’d actually like a stable, traditional 9-5 job instead of being a war correspondent or start-up founder. Don’t just give yourself permission to choose paths that are imbued with a cool and “rebellious” narrative, but ones you actually like—even if some folks think they’re boring and unhip.
2. Give it a trial run. Let’s say you want a new job. You hate your current work and find it unfulfilling. You think you’d like another job, but you’re not entirely sure. Instead of quitting your current gig and finding out the new one isn’t what you thought it would be, give it a trial run.
Now this could be tricky or impossible if the job you want is in a completely different field. But take a look at the current organization you’re working within. There could be an opportunity there for you to do what you want to do. If you’re an attorney at a firm that primarily does litigation, but you have a desire to do more consulting/contractual work, ask your higher-ups if you can take on a case that would allow you to explore that area of the law. Tell them you just want to test it out to see if it’s a good fit for you.
Actually getting your hands dirty with the kind of work you think you want to do; gives you a chance to 1) get an idea of what the work is actually like, and 2) get an idea if you’re the kind of person who actually enjoys said work. If you find out you don’t like it, no harm, no foul. Just go back to the job you were doing before.
Another way to give a different line of work a trial run is to moonlight with it by creating a side hustle.
If you’re still in school, you’re at a great advantage. Get firsthand experience in the careers you’re thinking about pursuing with internships. When young people ask me if they should go to law school, I always recommend that they work at a law firm before making that decision. There’s no better way to hone your likes than with firsthand experience.
3. Keep a journal. A journal can help you get a better idea of what you really like as opposed to what you think you like. Our memories get hazier, and rosier, over time. Whenever you get a hankering to visit New York City again, check your journal entries from the last time you were there to see how you felt about the visit. It may be the case that you didn’t have as great a time as you remember. 
4. Consult friends and family. Friends and family can be a great support in helping you avoid mis-wanting. For starters, you can use them as a resource to get a correct idea of the thing you want.
For example, maybe you want to quit your job and start your own business. Before you do that, take a family member or a friend who owns their own business out to lunch and ask them to tell you everything they hate about owning a business. This little exercise can help ensure that you have a complete picture of the thing you want. You may find out that the negatives outweigh the positives and that owning a business isn’t something you’d personally like.
Another way friends and family can help you avoid mis-wanting is by reminding you of what you really like. As outsiders to your internal life, they have a different, and sometimes more objective, view on your personality and proclivities.
Let’s say you’ve just finished reading a Wendell Berry novel, and you suddenly have a yearning to move to the country. You’re convinced that you’re the kind of guy that would not just like, but love agrarian living. You tell your wife this. She reminds you about how much you complained when you were at her grandparents’ house out in the country for only a week. Maybe you’re not the kind of guy who’s cut out for yeoman farming after all.
5. Realize you may end up liking what you didn’t think you wanted. Not only do we sometimes dislike what we thought we wanted, but we end up liking what we didn’t even realize we wanted. You think sushi is gross until you taste it; you swear off marriage for decades until falling head over heels for a special lady; you begrudgingly move back to your hometown, only to discover real happiness there. Keep yourself open and don’t be afraid to try new things; you never know when you’ll end up liking something you didn’t think you wanted!
Let us end this discussion with the insights of our friend Jack London, who explained the essence and significance of authentic liking in regards to how he and his wife wanted to sail around the world, while their friends thought the idea was nuts:
“Our friends cannot understand why we make this voyage. They shudder, and moan, and raise their hands. No amount of explanation can make them comprehend that we are moving along the line of least resistance; that it is easier for us to go down to the sea in a small ship than to remain on dry land, just as it is easier for them to remain on dry land than to go down to the sea in the small ship.
This state of mind comes of an undue prominence of the ego. They cannot get away from themselves. They cannot come out of themselves long enough to see that their line of least resistance is not necessarily everybody else’s line of least resistance. They make of their own bundle of desires, likes, and dislikes a yardstick wherewith to measure the desires, likes, and dislikes of all creatures. This is unfair. I tell them so. But they cannot get away from their own miserable egos long enough to hear me. They think I am crazy. In return, I am sympathetic. It is a state of mind familiar to me. We are all prone to think there is something wrong with the mental processes of the man who disagrees with us.
The ultimate word is I Like. It lies beneath philosophy, and is twined about the heart of life. When philosophy has maundered ponderously for a month, telling the individual what he must do, the individual says, in an instant, “I Like,” and does something else…
That is why I am building the [ship]. I am so made. I like, that is all.”

The boy who can't: a poem to inspire success and self-reliance.

Hello again, dear reader.

Today's conversation is another one of those thought-provoking meditation and self introspection, inspiring excerpts from literature. However, today's exhibit slightly unique in that it is a poem, which though the title leads the reader to believe is about the "boy who can't," is really concerned with those that won't even try. So hopefully dear reader, by the end of this poem, you too will be inspired to say "I can." Rather than "I can't,"...

“The Boy Who Can’t”
From Boy’s Life, c. 1920
By F. J. P.

Hey, fellows, come closer, let each of us name
The worst kind of nuisance – we’ll call it a game.
“I vote for the fellow who’s never on time!”
“The fellow who always would borrow a dime!”
“The chap who takes pleasure in starting a fight!”
“The geezer, while camping, who snickers all night!”
Yes, those pests are terribly trying, I grant,
But I’ll cast my vote for the fellow who “can’t.”
He can’t rig a fish-pole, he can’t take a hike,
He can’t cook a flapjack or tinker his bike,
He can’t learn to signal, he can’t do first aid,
Can’t do without candy or pink lemonade,
Can’t follow a trail and can’t lace up his shoe,
Can’t do a blamed thing that you want him to do!
Oh, boy, I’d be happy if I could but plant
A swift kick on the rear of the fellow who can’t!
He can’t get his grammar or spelling or math,
Can’t split his kindling, he can’t take a bath,
He can’t help his mother, he can’t use his head;
Can’t rise in the morning and can’t go to bed,
He can’t find his collar, he can’t tie his tie –
He never knows what he could do if he’d try –
But repeats all day long his monotonous chant:
“Oh, Mamma; oh, Teacher; oh, Mister, I can’t.”
There’s great need in the world for the confident man
Who tackles his work with a hearty “I can!”
So, if you would succeed and find living a joy,
Just learn how to do things while you are a boy;
For the boy who refuses to work when he SHOULD,
Loses the power to work when he WOULD.
Weakness and softness his talents supplant,
And he finds at the test that he REALLY CAN’T.

Dealing with life's challenges and understanding the sacrifice required in pursuit of hopes and dreams.

Hello again, dear reader.

Today's conversation is going to be yet another one of those little motivational and/or meditational excerpts that will help you to gain perspective on a various aspects in your life, dear reader. Today's excerpt really spoke to me when I stumbled across it on one of my late night excursions into the dark and dusty literary corners of the Internet. I guess it spoke to me because it's all about not running away from life, facing all of the challenges and being prepared to pay the cost to follow your heart and your dreams. I think it spoke to me so loudly because the first part of the excerpt deals with the young man, who wants to be a writer and a father, who is an engineer and doesn't think writing is much for career you would rather his son. Follow him into the engineering profession. So the discussion becomes does the young man pursues something he clearly has an aptitude for and follow his dreams; and pay the price by ruining the domestic tranquility has with his parents by going against their wishes. Is the young man prepared to follow his dreams even if it means not making very much money, or gaining little recognition; so, the young man's choice is, should he take the risk and follow his heart and become a writer or to be safe and sensible thing and follow his father into a prestigious career as an engineer.
A young man must decide however, if he becomes an engineer, is it worth the price you pay on his soul? What would you choose dear reader, would you have the courage to follow your heart and deal with all of the extra challenges that life may throw at you in doing so, or would you choose to safe and sensible path?...






 “Running Away from Life”
From Self and Self-management: Essays about Existing, 1918
By Arnold Bennett


To take refuge from life is to refuse it. Life generally offers due scope for the leading instinct in a man or a woman; and sometimes it offers the scope at a very low price, at no price at all.
For example, a young man may have a very marked instinct for engineering, and his father may be a celebrated and wealthy engineer who is only too anxious that the son should follow the same profession. Life has offered the scope and charged nothing for it.
But, on the other hand, a man may have a very marked instinct for authorship, and his father may be a celebrated and wealthy engineer who, being convinced that literature is an absurd and despicable profession, has determined that his son shall not be an author but an engineer. “Become an engineer,” says the father, “and I will give you unique help, and you are a made man. Become an author, and you get nothing whatever from me except opposition.”
Life, however, which has provided the instinct for literature, has also provided the scope for its fulfillment. The scope for young authors is vaster to-day on two continents than ever it was. But the price which in this case life quotes is very high. The young man hesitates. The price quoted includes comfort, parental approval, domestic peace, money, luxury, and perhaps also a comfortable and not unsatisfactory marriage. It includes practically all the ingredients of the mixture commonly known as happiness. Of course, by following literature the young man may recover all and more than all the price paid. But also he may not. The chances are about a hundred to one that he will not. He is risking nearly everything in order to buy a ticket in a lottery.
Let us say that, being a prudent and obedient young fellow, he declines to beggar himself for a ticket in a lottery. His instinct towards literature has not developed very far; he sacrifices it and becomes the engineer. By industry and goodwill and native brains he becomes a very fair engineer, the prop of the firm, the aid, and in due course the successor, of his father. He treats his work-people well. He marries a delightful girl, and he even treats her well. He has delightful children. He is a terrific worldly success and a model to his fellow-creatures. That man’s attention to duty, his altruism, his real kindness, are the theme of conversation among all his friends. He treats his conscience with the most extraordinary respect.
And yet, if his instinct towards literature was genuine, he is not fundamentally happy, and when he chances to meet an author, or to read about authors (even about their suicides of despair), or to be deeply impressed by a book, he is acutely aware that he has committed the sin of taking refuge from life; he knows that the extraordinary respect which he pays to his conscience is at bottom a doping of that organ; he perceives that the smooth path is in fact the rough path, and that the rough path, which he dared not face, might have been, with all its asperities, the smooth one. His existence is a vast secret and poisonous regret; and there is nothing whatever to be done; there is no antidote for the poison; the dope is a drug—and insufficient at that…
Both men and women can run away from life in ways far more subtle and less drastic than those which I have named. For the sake of clearness I have confined myself to rather crude and obvious examples of flight. There are probably few of us who are not conscious of having declined at least some minor challenge of existence. And there are still fewer of us who can charge ourselves with having been consistently too bold in our desire to get the full savor of existence.
Each individual must define happiness for himself or herself. For my part, I rule out practically all the dictionary definitions. In most dictionaries you will find that the principal meaning attached to the word is “good fortune” or “prosperity.” Which is notoriously absurd. Then come such definitions as “a state of well-being characterized by relative permanence, by dominantly agreeable emotion . . . and by a natural desire for its continuation.” This last is from Webster, and it is very clever. Yet I will have none of it, unless I am allowed to define the word “well-being” in my own way.
For me, an individual cannot be in a state of well-being if any of his faculties are permanently idle through any fault of his own. The full utilization of all the faculties seems to me to be the foundation of well-being. But I doubt if a full utilization of all the faculties necessarily involves the idea of good fortune, or prosperity, or tranquility, or contentedness with one’s lot, or even a “dominantly agreeable emotion”; very often it rather involves the contrary.
In my view happiness includes chiefly the idea of “satisfaction after full honest effort.” Everybody is guilty of mistakes and of serious mistakes, and the contemplation of these mistakes must darken, be it ever so little, the last years of existence. But it need not be fatal to a general satisfaction. Men and women may in the end be forced to admit: “I made a fool of myself,” and still be fairly happy. But no one can possibly be satisfied, and therefore no one can in my sense be happy, who feels that in some paramount affair he has failed to take up the challenge of life. For a voice within him, which none else can hear, but which he cannot choke, will constantly be murmuring:
“You lacked courage. You hadn’t the pluck. You ran away.”
And it is happier to be unhappy in the ordinary sense all one’s life than to have to listen at the end to that dreadful interior verdict.

Eight things everyone needs to know about how to leave the room: how to make a graceful exit, without losing any of your commanding presence.

Hello again, dear reader.

In a previous conversation, we discussed how to present a commanding presence in a room and be the person that everyone gravitates towards. The flipside of this coin is of course what to do after you established a commanding presence would need to leave. How do you make your exit, but still maintain those warm and fuzzy feelings that the people in your particular room have just started forming about you. Well, today's discussion is going to help you out with that, dear reader. By providing eight tried-and-true steps that can always be relied on to help you make a graceful exit from the room, while still maintaining a commanding presence...

You’re at a party. Maybe someone made you go, cornered you at work or school and you couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough to dodge the invitation. Or perhaps you showed up to a social event that held the promise of being a fun shindig, but after listening for 20 minutes to a lady explain the pros and cons of buying an Accord over a Camry and being forced into a conga line against your will, all you want to do is make like a baby and head out. A lot of men find themselves trapped in these kinds of situations, wanting to stick a pencil in their eye but afraid to make an escape attempt.

While you’ve surely heard about the importance of making a dynamite first impression, leaving a classy last impression is just as important. Studies have shown that people most clearly remember the end of an experience, not the beginning. Thus, you want to be able to exit a social event on your own terms, but you also want to leave the host and fellow guests saying, “Dang, I like that guy!”
So how do you leave a social event without being awkward and offending your host? And how do you make sure people remember you fondly?
Below, we set out some guidelines so you can leave a social event with confidence and class.
1. Know when to leave. No matter how smoothly you do it, it’s impossible to leave a social event politely if you exit at the wrong time. Even if you know the party is a disaster from the minute you walk in, you have to put in minimum cameo time. For a come and go kind of function, this minimum is about an hour. At a dinner party, this comes after the after-dinner coffee has been served. If you need to leave before these times for an important reason, tell the host or hostess as soon as you arrive. But generally, if you can’t make it for the minimum cameo time, it’s better not to come at all. It’s awkward to leave in the middle of dinner or to circle the room once before exiting back out the door. Your first and last impression will be one and the same, and not a very good one at that.
Once the minimum time has been met, either wait to make your exit as the party starts winding down or, if you’re having a terrible time, simply make the executive decision to get the heck out of dodge.
2. Stand up. When they feel it’s time to leave, most folks start to squirm in their seat and say things like, “Weeelll…. it’s getting late.” Then they just keep on sitting on their duffs looking awkwardly at their watch. Don’t dilly dally. If you’re ready to leave, than show that you are. Standing up shows you’re committed to leaving.
Now, don’t be abrupt about it. That’s just as awkward as squirming in your seat and looking side-to-side for a means to escape. Stand-up smoothly and confidently. While you’re standing, simply say, “Well I must be leaving.” Never give an excuse for why you have to leave. An excuse can make your hostess feel unimportant and forces you to sheepishly explain yourself all the way to the door.
If you want to be particularly suave about your transition from sitting to standing, try this trick. When you’re ready to leave, wait for a pause in the conversation and start a short story. Make it an engrossing, entertaining story. You want to leave them laughing. As you tell the story, start standing up. You can even start putting on your coat and hat as you spin your yarn. Walk next to your host when you reach the story’s climax. Give a quick wink to the group, and…
3. Hold out your hand. Alright, you’re standing up. What do you do now? This is a crucial moment. If you don’t continue on your path towards the door, your host and the other guests will likely start wrapping their tentacles around you to hold you hostage for another round of Parcheesi.
As soon as you’re on your feet, offer your hand to your host. Give a good firm handshake. If appropriate, offer a man hug or kiss on the cheek if it’s a lady or a European dude. Most people who are socially adept will see that you’re serious about leaving and will usher you to the door and see you out. However, some people will still try to get you to stay.
4. Say “Thanks!” and “Goodbye.”As you’re shaking hands, thank your host or whoever you’re with for the hospitality and the conversation. Look them in the eyes, give them a big smile, and compliment the host on something specific you enjoyed about the evening. “Thank you for dinner! Your pumpkin pie is the best I’ve ever had!” Give a pleasant “goodbye” or “see you later.” Also, direct your goodbyes to the other people in the group.
5. Gather your things. You don’t want to leave anything that will cause you to come back after you’ve left. This only opens up the chance of getting sucked back into social purgatory. And it bursts the warm memory the host and remaining guests started forming about you as soon as you left. Grab your coat and hat and your wife’s (or significant others) coat and clutch (or cell phone or wallet or whatever else is necessary). Make sure you have your cell phones. If you do happen to leave something, wait until tomorrow to come pick it up.
6. Walk to the door with confidence. Inertia can get the best of a man at this point. If you don’t start walking towards the door, you might find yourself sitting back down. Once you make your move to the door, do so with confidence and determination. Don’t stop to admire Grandma’s china cabinet or you risk getting a 10-minute lecture on the cabinet’s history from the Civil War to the present day.
7. Open the door. You’ve reached the door. You’re almost there, but you’re still at risk of having your departure needlessly delayed with awkward chatter. A well-mannered host will open the door for you and see you out. However, some people have either not been taught this bit of courtesy or if they have, they’ve forgotten it. The individuals in the latter group also seem to be the type that will strike up conversations in the doorway for another 15 minutes. If you don’t take matters in your own hands by opening the door, you’re doomed to listen to your wife’s co-worker talk about how she has a busy day making name tags for a convention tomorrow and the eating habits of her cats. If your host doesn’t open the door for you, do it yourself as soon as you reach the door. Once you open the door, step out. Keep your feet planted outside; even if the host continues to talk to you, the inside/outside dichotomy will soon compel them to close the door and send you on your way.
8. Walk away. Say your final goodbyes and pleasantries and walk to your car. Tip your hat (you are wearing a hat, aren’t you?) for the final charming touch. Mission accomplished! A few minutes more and you’ll be back in your man chair, sitting by the fire, with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a favorite book in the other.