I’ve sat out­side an air­port or a train or bus sta­tion more times than I care to remem­ber, cry­ing my eyes out or feel­ing gen­er­ally just like crap, because a loved one or a friend has just left. Over time I’ve developed a few habits to deal with leav­ing or being left while travelling.

#1 Make no promises

Never ever make any prom­ises. I know you’d like to see your latest one-night-stand again after a good nights romp around the bed­sheets (who wouldn’t), but if you’re not at all ser­i­ous then a peck on the cheek and a big-bear hug will be enough. Should you actu­ally meet up again, then that’s just great, but don’t make it harder than it should be for the two of you. Basic­ally, any­thing apart from what you’ve had so far will be a bonus…

#2 Only say it once

Pre­tend that there is noth­ing unusual about you sit­ting in a cof­fee shop or a McDon­alds at an air­port and only one of you has a plane ticket out of the coun­try. Just treat each other like you’ll be see­ing each other the next day. This might seem like a bit of a lie (well, it is), but it will help with the trans­ition. Never ever men­tion the word (or any­thing to do with it) start­ing with ‘good’ and end­ing with ‘bye’ just before it is actu­ally time to say good­bye. It will only pull you in deeper. You’ll run out of things to say and it’ll just be unbear­able. There will be tears. I prom­ise you. Only say “Good­Bye” when there is noth­ing left to say!

#3 Leave early

Con­tinu­ing from the last point, you have to leave as early as humanly pos­sible. Why people like to drag the inev­it­able out for as long as they can is just plainly bey­ond me. Maybe it’s a sado-masochist thing, who knows. You arrive at the air­port 3 hours before the flight and the check-in lady just told you your flight has been delayed by three hours. Don’t make your rel­at­ives and friends sit around for ages wait­ing for your flight to be called up. After you checked your bags in, you go and check your­self in. Go clear secur­ity, let em take all your sham­poo and shower gel bottles off you if they feel like it and get the latest John Grisham novel to read while wait­ing for your flight.

#4 Get drunk

Now that all the other points are out of the way, it’s time to get ser­i­ous. Should you be the one that’s leav­ing then you’re in a bit of luck. On most long-haul flights you can still get booze for free, so get your tick­ets worth of alco­hol down your throat. If you’re the one stay­ing then you’ll have no choice but to pay for your own. Leav­ing, or being left, is never easy and it should be dealt with accord­ingly. Copi­ous amounts of alcohlic bever­ages should dull your senses enough so that, after you have sur­vived your hangover, you can get over your loss.

Of course, if you’re in love, then con­sider all of the above points as use­less as Barack Obama get­ting the Nobel Peace Price minutes (it seemed like) after he became president…

How do you deal with say­ing good­bye while travelling?