How Do You Gracefully Get Out Of This?

Hi, Leslie Harris here, and last night I had kind of an awkward situation. Let me explain.

A few days ago, a woman who I don’t know very well reached out to me on Facebook messenger and asked me if she could have a conversation with me. After a few back and forth messages, we agreed to speak last evening. At one point, she asked me if I would have at least half an hour to speak with her, to which I said yes at least 30 to 45 minutes.

Now I want to preface this by saying that she was very upset buy some incidents that have occurred in her life, and there was a very specific reason why she chose to call me, but I don’t want to get into the details. The problem lies within the fact that I was on the phone with her for almost two and a half hours, and I couldn’t figure out how to gracefully end the conversation.

She was extremely upset, crying, and I wanted to help her. The worst part? I don’t think I really helped her. She felt better about her own situation, but I don’t know that I helped her resolve anything.

How would you have handled this? I can see now in hindsight that maybe I should have said something like, hey this conversation has gone on a long time, and I really need to end it soon, but she haven’t really gotten to the Crux of the issue. Like I said, I wanted to help her, but I also didn’t really want to be on the phone for 2 and 1/2 hours!

How would you have gracefully gotten out of this situation? Let me know in the comments