In March 2018, I wrote a five part series about apologies. If you're interested, here's part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.
I divided apologies into thirteen types: Gaslighting, Victimhood, Shut-up, Hero, Savior, Damage Control, Courtesy, Yom Kippur Style, Sorry for Your Feelings, Olive Branch, Forced, Shame, and Empathy.
In 2020, I wrote this angry, sarcastic post about using the word IF in an apology. There I said, I'm sorry if you're not educated enough about apologies to know that adding IF to an apology usually renders that apology null and void.
I'm glad to see that I used the word USUALLY, because that means I don't have to contract my past self.
Today, I was thinking more about the IF in apologies and when I feel it is appropriate and not appropriate.
Well, I'm reading my past writings about the Sorry for Your Feelings apology, and here I disagree with my past self.
Back then I said there were times where it was appropriate to apologize for someone's emotions. My argument was there are times where we regret causing people pain but yet we do not regret that joke we told or the controversial opinion we shared. I still stand by THAT. All jokes are going to be offensive to at least one person, and controversial opinions are always going to hurt or anger some people.
BUT...I now feel it is never appropriate to apologize for someone else's emotions.
So this is what I'm thinking now about the word IF in apologies and what we should do when we don't like that we hurt someone, but we feel our words or actions were merited.
A) When we know that someone has been hurt by our words and we now feel what we said or did was wrong, then we should say something along the lines of. I am sorry that I did so and so. I really regret it. It was shitty of me.
If someone reacts angrily to our actions and tells us what we did to make them angry, it is very weak to sit there and say, I'm sorry IF I hurt you; or even worse, I'm sorry if you were hurt by what I said.
B) There are times where we don't know whether or not we have hurt someone. The day after we said something, we might think about it and cringe, thinking, Yikes. That might not have been a good thing to say. But we might not be sure that the other person was hurt or angry.
Or we might not imagine that what we said was offensive, but the person hasn't returned our text...so then we start worrying. Did I say the wrong thing??
It's a bit presumptuous to assume we offended someone. So then I think, in these cases, it's appropriate to say, I'm sorry if I said anything to offend you yesterday, or I'm worried I made you angry yesterday.
C) There are times we stand by our words and actions, but someone is hurt and angered by them. Then I think the appropriate thing to say is simply, I'm sorry that I hurt you. You're not apologizing for their feelings. But nor are you apologizing for your actions.
D) There are times where we stand by our words and actions, AND we don't give much a crap about whether we hurt the person. Then we might say something like, Fuck you or Go to Hell. OR we might say, I'm so so so sorry! and then laugh wickedly behind their back.
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