It can be hard to end a phone call. But ‘Okaybye’ is not the way to do it

‘Sometimes you can say more on the phone than in person.’ Photograph: Jacob Lund/Alamy

Phone conversations can be great things. It’s a shame we’re in an age when you can’t just have them on impulse. One of my oldest friends came to mind yesterday morning. We had not spoken for a couple of months and I wanted to hear his voice. And even with him I felt it would be a slight imposition to just call. So I texted him first to see if he could talk. This process has become so normal that I didn’t give it a second thought until afterwards. Anyway, he responded in the affirmative, agreeing that the call could be made there and then, which it was, and we had a good conversation.

While meeting a friend in person is optimal, phone calls have their place. Sometimes it feels as if you can say more, perhaps speaking more frankly than if you were looking into the whites of each other’s eyes.

But however good the conversation, for me there’s one thing that can mar it, leaving a slightly sour aftertaste. Almost as bad as watching your team play well for 90 minutes, only to concede a goal right at the death, spoiling everything. It’s to do with how the call ends. I have a couple of close friends in the habit of saying goodbye with unsettling abruptness. We chat away, informing and entertaining each other for a good while, then, after a short bringing-things-to-a-close phase, my dear interlocutor suddenly snaps: “Okaybye.” And that’s that. Gone. Silence.

The flip side of this coin is the endless exchange of goodbyes, see yous, love yous etc at the conclusion of calls between new lovers. “No, you say bye.” “No, you,” etc. Nobody wants that, obviously, but there’s a balance. The opposite leaves me feeling hollow, as if the other person was all along desperate to get off the line. Perhaps they’re unconsciously influenced by phone calls depicted in films and dramas, which for some reason rarely end with anyone saying goodbye to anyone else. Perhaps they just don’t like me as much as I think. Whatever the reason, if they should read this and recognise themselves, I hope they take note. Bye.

• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist