This is somewhere along the lines of
it's been real. At the end of a
dinner,
function, or gathering, one should stand up,
shake hands with the host, and thank them.
'
Thank you for the wonderful presentation. It was lovely'
'It's been
lovely meeting you,
I hope we can do it again sometime'
y personal theory is that by the end of the night, you just want to go home and the path of least resistance is generally to murmur some social niceties, peck a few cheeks, and get the hell out of there.
'It was a great evening, thanks again'
'I don't know how you pull these things off!'
And every now and then to shake things up a bit, I tell the bluddy truth:
't's been lovely, but I have to scream now.