Is it rude to drop a Zoom call?

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I used to minimize the physical meeting I'd attend, due to boredom and frustration with people, but I'd feel stuck, seldom upset enough to get up and walk out. Now I live where interesting conversation is rare. So, since Covid made them popular, I now go to Zoom meetings, but if they go badly off-topic or get overrun with fools, I just click out of there without a goodbye. Since I don't want to engage in the discussion, even explaining why I was leaving would violate that. However, I'm probably at my limit for people assuming I had technical troubles. Any thoughts?

I have done the same. I dont join the meetings now.

I have a lot of trouble leaving social situations. I often expect everybody to be offended when I do, which is a bit irrational of me because I often find it hard to believe that anybody is particularly glad of my presence. I don't know that there's any definitive answer to the question "is it rude?" Depends on the people and the situation. There are various social procedures for smoothing over the act of leaving. They usually involve giving acceptable reasons for going, expressing reluctance at going, issuing compliments, making promises about returning, and ritualised "farewell" gestures, and I suppose different groups have different expectations about which of those (if any) are normal. OTOH sometimes a meeting gets so dysfunctional that it might be better to do the opposite and then slam the door on the way out to hammer home the point. I suppose whether or not that does any good depends on the individual's status and "social capital."

Unless the meeting is very small, I see leaving a zoom meeting like slipping out the door IRL. If there are a lot of people at the meeting, no one really notices anyway.

There are many reasons someone might have to leave a meeting. You don’t need to give one. Should someone ask, you can just say something came up.

This one was just six present when I left. I know I could dissemble, but I'm usually forthright, and I have spent about a day honing a one-sentence answer that covers it. "Trying to discuss technology with someone who does not use numbers feels to me like trying to discuss music with someone who does not think their tone deafness matters."

^ The trouble with “explaining” is the others get insulted or don’t understand and want to argue about it.

You may understand your perfect sentence but I bet the person you are referencing doesn’t.

Of course, just my 2c.

Thanks. That analogy seems very useful to me - strong correlation, and with one end that is easy for most people to imagine. I agree that it could be taken as an insult, but if people want more details, I would keep hammering away at the "problem child" as having Dunning-Kruger syndrome, which causes others to suffer. I've now got a list of three people who will cause me to leave that meeting if they happen to drop in, and if I drop out, I should leave more of a clue than just ghosting them. Agreed that some people are pretty easy to insult without them catching on, which can be good fun.
On another level, she was just doing the standard female feeling-dump, and I was on the classic wanting to help path, but all the available help involved numbers, which she does not use. There's no real point in telling someone that they shouldn't get upset about things they don't understand and never will without offering at least the appearance of safety, and I can't do that, either.

Oh brother, I feel you!! ! I think dropping off a zoom call can be rude, but it doesn't have to be. In your case that you are describing, I would not feel bad about dropping off with no notice, especially if these people are pretty much strangers. I probably would have said something though, like, "Sorry guys, I need to leave." And then just have said goodbye. That would have probably been the best thing instead of a cold drop. You never have to explain why you need to leave, just saying you need to leave is sufficient.

Now if this was like a zoom family reunion with people who love me, or a work meeting, or something, I would definitely say something before leaving because it would definitely be rude to cold drop. But a bunch of strangers who are talking about stuff they don't even understand, I would just make it a quick, "Nice to have met you but I have to go now," and be done with it.

I've always had trouble with good byes in group situations. If I don't want to interrupt to join a discussion, interrupting to mention leaving, which needs no elaboration, feels like a worse interruption. Generally, I'm irrelevant to the group and I doubt that anyone cares. In this case, we have been meeting weekly for years and a few members are making noises about how it feels like family to them. Well, maybe it feels like family to me too, but not one that understands me.

I know what you mean. Would it be helpful to you to just put it in the chat that you have to leave? That way you don't have to speak it.

In another meeting, I warned the moderator via chat that if we stayed off topic I'd leave. I didn't get invited to the next one.

I totally agree. Life’s too short to deal with fools. And I decided one my 60th birthday (a few years ago now) that I don’t have to explain myself to anyone… not even a High Court judge, should that unlikely occasion ever arise.

This happens to me, too, IRL as well as on zoom. [bold] I came to the conclusion it was less rude to slip away quietly than disrupt the main discussion.

I’ve been involved in a number of groups in which some say it is “like family,” but I have never felt that included.

^^ I suppose we should try to observe if others sneak out or always make an announcement.

You don't even need to say anything..... there is a chat function in zoom.

Mute the mike, type it into the chat that "the phone is ringing, I'll have to go" and then leave.

^ So correct!

This would work better if I were more sure of how to use chat function…there are variables that confound me.

Dear_One, I have watched…people leave without notice unless they are one of the presenters. One Zoom meeting I participate in shows a small text line when someone leaves. “So and So has just left” or something like that.