#204 Sexit Strategies

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Submitted by HB.

You’ve been looking across the room at him or her in that coordination meeting for months, have spotted them at the expat bar and nodded politely to them at the house party. But in truth you have a burning desire to be in bed with this person. Making sweet passionate love would never be better in your head, and you clearly have over-thought sexual angst on the issue. This person has even come up on one of your Top Five Hottest EAW Lists (the ones you make but can never justify laminating because of the high turnover).

There is a point in time when this love simply cannot be. Not because you are Capulet and the other a Montague or because it would mean infidelity, but simply because they are a donor and you are applying for funding from them, or they are the head of the cluster meetings, or they are from the UN and it would be very uncool to deal with the dark side, or your house sucks and their hardship allowance means they have a nice pad. There are 10 small reasons why you should be together and 1000 small ones why you shouldn’t.

But then a miraculous thing happens. For once it is not you interpreting staff departure announcements. Instead, it’s you who gets the call that you have finally been noticed and you’ve got that job in headquarters or a new duty station, or you’ve been accepted onto that masters programme (and will be able to actually stop lying about that fake masters on your CV — the one you bought on the Koh San Road when you went for  that regional meeting in Bangkok).

It is now time to decide when to tell people that you are leaving. If the opportunity is a few months away, it is important to hold it under your hat for a bit. If it a quick move, then you must act fast. You are now in charge of your sexit strategy.

The sexit strategy is the time when an EAW hooks up with that person (or persons) that they have not been “allowed” to because of unwritten rules of engagement in their duty station or mission.

After months of not engaging – it is now time to strike up that conversation. “Hey, have you heard I’m leaving?” Follow up with a vague idea of how important you are and how you’ll be a good contact forever. “Yeah, yeah… I’m needed in headquarters to carry out oversight for the development of the global resource mobilization strategy for our M&E activities in the implementation of our regional programme…. You know the way it is.”

At this point it is important to emphasize to your target that you were always sorry that you didn’t get to know them better during your time here, and how you normally try and keep out of personal drama in the field. It is also important to point out that you were really impressed with how they acted at that [insert inanely titled] meeting, and how that really made such and such listen, and that it changed how your organisation implemented something. (This can be made up.)

On occasion this may be enough to seal the deal for the successful completion of one of the key activities within your sexit strategy. If not, always use the line “Well, we should definitely catch up for a drink before I go.” If you do not receive a “Yes, definitely!” take this as a positive sign that your sexit strategy will not be implementable with this person and move on quickly.

Sexit time is very precious and must not be wasted.