By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

For some people, it comes naturally. For others, it's learned strategy. When someone does it well, artfully, seamlessly, you hardly even notice, but when it's done poorly, without grace or care, it can lead to trouble, heartache, even a life-long grudge.

How you say "goodbye" at a party, no matter how casual, is never casual.

It starts with a visual survey of the scene. Your eyes sweep the room, noting the positions of the key persons and their relative distance to the exit. Depending on the type of party, you might want to catch as many people as you can with the combination goodbye handshake/one-arm hug. Or as few as possible.

At the mandatory Christmas party, the one you really didn't want to attend but felt you had to for appearances sake, you're obligated to make the goodbye rounds to the host, the bosses and sometimes your least-favorite co-workers, the real high-maintenance ones who take note of who told them "bye" and who didn't. Skip over one of these types and you start the downward spiral: "You know so-and-so? He neva' tell me bye. I neva' know he was like dat. I not going tell him 'hi' when he come work now. Eh, when he come work, no tell him hi, okay? He like dat, 'as why. No bodda' already."

There is no recovery.

If, however, it's a company gathering where everybody gets along, there's not really the need to say goodbye to everyone. You're gonna' see them at work tomorrow anyway, and they're secure in the knowledge that you like them well enough without needing an air-kiss as proof. Just give the "see ya" nod to whomever you meet as you head toward the car. It's cool.

Every family, and indeed almost every group, has the one person whose goodbye you avoid for various reasons. Usually it's because it's the goodbye that never ends. The kids are screaming, your spouse is gunning the engine already, your eyes are rolled back in your head and that person is starting up on one-last-story number 47. Your only hope is that someone else trying to sneak out gets caught in the goodbye tractor beam and you can tag out and go home.

Then there are the multiple-byes. Some people make the rounds of the room more than once. They catch you by the haupia/kulolo table, and 20 minutes later, they catch you again by the cooler as they're going to the car. To be able to pull off the multiple goodbye without sounding stupid or repeating, "Okay. Drive safely!" three times in a row is a real art. Few are so skilled.

But the hardest party goodbye of all is when you just don't want to say goodbye. Maybe you know you won't see that person for a long time. Maybe there have been hard feelings. Maybe there's an emotion that catches in your throat just thinking of the right words, the words that you could never bring yourself to say. That's when you mumble something to the people around you about having to put the windows up in your car because "look like might rain" and you slip out without a word, letting out a long, slow, slightly guilty sigh.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.