We apologize for so much, yet we regret so little. Or is it the other way around? Try to count how many times a day you say “I’m sorry.” I say it instead of “excuse me” or when I’d like to hit a live-action backspace button and redo the last ten seconds or ten minutes.
Apologies are stock in trade. You can’t be mad at me because I apologized. That one is my bete noir. I resist accepting apologies because if I do, then I have to stop being annoyed or hurt or offended or whatever it was. If I’m not mad anymore, then no problem, I’ll accept your apology. If I’m still bothered, well then, parse what I said when you apologized. You might find (with the help of a semantics tutor if necessary) that I never exactly forgave anything.
Part of the reason is that people rarely regret causing offense. More often they regret having to deal with the offense that they caused. Honesty is no defense. We’re not talking about Truth, we’re talking about feelings and as you should know by now, Truth has no place in a discussion of feeling. Of course you meant what you said, that doesn’t make it okay to have said it. Or worse, if you didn’t mean it then you should have kept your mouth shut in the first place.
Can you tell where I’m going with all this? Of course you can. Sorry I was gone for so long. I’m back now, I think.
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