Last summer I posted a submissions box on my website asking for people to write a letter to someone he/she had hurt for an essay I was putting together. I received a handful of submissions and as always I began to carefully read through each of them when I came across a voice I recognized. The apology, though it was addressed “to a girl,” was written for me, and it had come from a girl I had broken up with about a year and a half earlier. Here’s what it said, verbatim:
“to a girl
i don’t really know what to say to you, other than how sorry i am and that you have every right to hate me forever. good thing is you’re happy without me and i’m happy without you. we were horrible for eachother, and things happen for a reason. i’m glad we both let eachother go, but it hurts me that i hurt you for the reasons we let go. i’m sorry you didn’t think you were enough for me and i’m sorry i made it seem that way. i’ve always thought you were beautiful, but i just didn’t think we were compatible. it seems like you’ve found yourself lately, and that makes me happy. i’m happy for you, and i hope you’re doing well.
from a girl”
So what was so interesting about this one-hundred-thirty word apology that gave it an entire essay of its own? I have many complex answers to such a simple question, but I can make it concise by saying this: here are some notes on apologizing.
Psychology Today published an article in which the six components of an effective apology were highlighted: 1. Expression of regret. 2. Explanation of what went wrong. 3. Acknowledgment of responsibility. 4. Declaration of repentance. 5. Offer of repair. 6. Request for forgiveness. If you can think back to a time in your life where someone has offered you an apology and you questioned the validity of it, I invite you now to break down that apology and determine for yourself the weight of it; I will do the same.
For starters, doesn’t it make for a strange apology when there is no concrete person A and no concrete person B? What good is “a girl” apologizing to “a girl”? It makes for just a collection of “I’m sorry’s” and other filler words floating around and occupying space in the wrong ears. Psychology Today writes, “if for some reason, you can't craft an apology with all six components, the researchers say, the most important element is to accept responsibility.” Logically, how is one to anonymously, yet successfully, accept responsibility? Who does the apology account for when “I am sorry” provides no antecedent for the “I”? No one. A successful, meaningful apology can only be made so by acknowledging who that responsibility is to fall back on. It’s especially confusing when that apology is not only coming from a shadow but is also addressed to a shadow. There’s no recipient and no giver, which makes for a pretty pointless apology.
The interesting thing about this particular apology is that it not only lacks a giver and a receiver, but even an acceptance of responsibility: “we were horrible for eachother, and things happen for a reason.” If you’re not an avid reader of my essays, I will take this time to let you know that what I went through with this girl was not just a break up. It was not a situation that could be played off as the world pulling two people apart, or two people mutually agreeing to go their separate ways. Our breakup included emotional and verbal abuse, stalking, manipulation, gaslighting—the list stretches on. But in the one-hundred-thirty words submitted to me, there was no mention of that anywhere—only the extended emotional trauma I experienced reduced to a silly act of Fate.
For a while I have detested the phrase “I’m sorry” only because it’s impossible to know what is really meant by it. There’s something about apologies that no one ever tells you—at least no one ever told me. The sincerity in them can change substantially when you ask the question, why are you sorry? It’s a loophole that the most deceptive thrive inside. Listed as number two in the components to an adequate apology is the act of explaining what went wrong, which falls in direct unity with answering the question why are you sorry? The girl who wrote this apology to me is the same girl I caught cheating on me. I can still hear the voicemails she left on my phone, barely audible, sobbing hysterically, repeating, “I’m sorry, Michelle. I’m so sorry,” while still denying she had been unfaithful. I’m now more sure than I ever have been that if I would have asked why and received an honest answer, it would have been “I’m sorry I was caught,” not “I’m sorry I’ve done this and that it’s hurt you,” because she couldn’t even admit she had done it. In the years that have passed since this, she still has never admitted it—only emptily apologized for what she can’t admit to doing. The ultimate problem with “I’m sorry” is that you can never really tell when it’s born from the heart—a genuine repentance—and when it’s born from the tongue—created only to appease.
Recently I was in cahoots with a girl I thought I liked, and trusted, too. We were in that stupid phase that people of my generation refer to as “talking” (if you ask me, you’re either dating or you’re not, but that’s a different tangent I might go on later). We got into an argument over something that I considered to be a very big deal and I wanted time to myself to think about what had happened, so I asked for one simple thing: space. Long story short, she ended up exchanging messages with my cousin on social media about me, even going so far as to send him screenshots of things I had said to her, thinking it was a private conversation between just us two (as conversations should be when the message has one sender and one recipient). And when she discovered I was angry, she drove forty minutes to show up at my dorm without telling me or asking me first, only sending a text that said, “I’m outside your dorm and have a letter to give you.” Of course I didn’t go see her, nor did I get the letter she wrote for me.
When I called her to tell her I was cutting things off, I gave her the chance to explain everything—to apologize. All she could muster was, “I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry,” in a tone that lacked any degree of regret. It reminded me with a great pang of anger of the first sentence of the submission: “i don’t really know what to say to you, other than how sorry i am.” The dichotomy of an apology is in the words themselves as well as the deliverance of those words, and, needless to say, the latter statements paired with a careless tone on one hand and a typed, anonymous message on the other are ultimately futile. And that was more than enough evidence to prove that some apologies fall achingly short of achieving their purpose.
The way I see it, face-to-face apologies are the only true way to apologize to someone. If she cannot see your face, cannot glean the nuances that come with facial expressions, and cannot hear your voice, either full of or lacking genuine regret, then how is she to know your apology is honest? The girl who wrote me this submission automatically put herself at a disadvantage (that is of course, if she intended this apology to be a genuine one) because with the absence of her facial expressions and her voice I was left to fill in the blanks with the version of her that I remember instead of the version who wrote the apology (assuming, of course, those two versions are different). Needless to say, the version I remember is not a pleasant one. I read the apology with a bite of sarcasm, a blatant disregard of the pain she caused, and I think of the face that laughed at me and mocked this pain, not one that was ever sorry for anything she did. So why then, is the apology even trying? It’s only making the burden heavier, not working toward closure like a real apology should. What is a real apology if not a personal one?
There is also the need for me to talk about the superficial apology in which one person apologizes for how the other person feels, which, by the way, is not possible, therefore making for a poor excuse for any kind of adequate apology. To pull from my overarching example, the submission: “i’m sorry you didn’t think you were enough for me.” An apology for the things I thought does not span to cover the actions made by her which caused me to think those things. For instance, I will directly paste a few texts I received from her throughout our relationship and breakup:
“you don’t know shit about my relationship with ******. we are friends. i’m sorry you’re too insecure to see that.”
“i really am sick of you.”
“you used to be so different. it’s a damn shame what happened to you.”
“fuck you for leaving me like this. fuck you fuck you fuck you.”
“i hope i can find better than you. and in some ways, i already have.”
I think the simple fact alone that she cheated on me is enough to say why I felt how I did, but adding these disgusting remarks to the mix can only further my feelings of inadequacy when it came to her. The strange thing about it—the funny thing, really—is that there was never an apology made for her actions, but instead an overstepped, incompetent apology for my feelings. In other words, not an apology at all.
Apologies are not made to seek forgiveness. If you’re apologizing with the intention of being forgiven, you’re probably apologizing for the wrong reasons, not to mention seeking something that is not yours to find—at least not yet. A good while ago, two friends of mine were in a fight with one another. After offering a mediocre (non face-to-face, I must add) apology, one of the friends messaged me in regards to the other and said, “I just want her to forgive me now so our friendship can go back to normal.” I spent the next fifteen minutes or so explaining (or trying to explain) that real forgiveness comes on the watch of the person who has been hurt, not the person who has done the hurting. It is quite selfish to put a person through any degree of pain and expect three feeble words, “I am sorry,” to take that pain away, or put together the pieces of the person that have been broken, to replace the trust that has inevitably been lost.
An apology in exchange for forgiveness is a rarity, especially in cases where the pain that has been inflicted upon someone is scarring. It would help us to remember that as humans, there are certain battles that don’t leave us even until the day we die—more often than not, these battles come from deep emotional wounds that have been inflicted upon us by another human being, which is arguably the most saddening betrayal of all, especially when those wounds cannot be accompanied by a sincere, adequate apology.
What’s more is we ought not to believe the words we hear, but rather the actions we see after those words are spoken. The truth is that the most efficient of apologies is not in the words or even the deliverance of them, but in the ways we show we are sorry, and the ways we show we are worthy of being trusted again.
So what I’m asking of you is not that you apologize often, because that’s just as annoying as not apologizing at all. Instead I’m asking that you apologize under two circumstances: only when it’s necessary, and only when you mean it. Any other circumstance makes for an empty, meaningless excuse for an apology. And please, make sure you know how to do it properly. These battles I speak of—these intense emotional wounds that everyone carries somewhere inside of her—take a leap towards healing when we know the person who caused them is genuinely sorry, and the only way we know that is with a genuine apology.
“to a girl
i don’t really know what to say to you, other than how sorry i am and that you have every right to hate me forever. good thing is you’re happy without me and i’m happy without you. we were horrible for eachother, and things happen for a reason. i’m glad we both let eachother go, but it hurts me that i hurt you for the reasons we let go. i’m sorry you didn’t think you were enough for me and i’m sorry i made it seem that way. i’ve always thought you were beautiful, but i just didn’t think we were compatible. it seems like you’ve found yourself lately, and that makes me happy. i’m happy for you, and i hope you’re doing well.
from a girl”
So what was so interesting about this one-hundred-thirty word apology that gave it an entire essay of its own? I have many complex answers to such a simple question, but I can make it concise by saying this: here are some notes on apologizing.
Psychology Today published an article in which the six components of an effective apology were highlighted: 1. Expression of regret. 2. Explanation of what went wrong. 3. Acknowledgment of responsibility. 4. Declaration of repentance. 5. Offer of repair. 6. Request for forgiveness. If you can think back to a time in your life where someone has offered you an apology and you questioned the validity of it, I invite you now to break down that apology and determine for yourself the weight of it; I will do the same.
For starters, doesn’t it make for a strange apology when there is no concrete person A and no concrete person B? What good is “a girl” apologizing to “a girl”? It makes for just a collection of “I’m sorry’s” and other filler words floating around and occupying space in the wrong ears. Psychology Today writes, “if for some reason, you can't craft an apology with all six components, the researchers say, the most important element is to accept responsibility.” Logically, how is one to anonymously, yet successfully, accept responsibility? Who does the apology account for when “I am sorry” provides no antecedent for the “I”? No one. A successful, meaningful apology can only be made so by acknowledging who that responsibility is to fall back on. It’s especially confusing when that apology is not only coming from a shadow but is also addressed to a shadow. There’s no recipient and no giver, which makes for a pretty pointless apology.
The interesting thing about this particular apology is that it not only lacks a giver and a receiver, but even an acceptance of responsibility: “we were horrible for eachother, and things happen for a reason.” If you’re not an avid reader of my essays, I will take this time to let you know that what I went through with this girl was not just a break up. It was not a situation that could be played off as the world pulling two people apart, or two people mutually agreeing to go their separate ways. Our breakup included emotional and verbal abuse, stalking, manipulation, gaslighting—the list stretches on. But in the one-hundred-thirty words submitted to me, there was no mention of that anywhere—only the extended emotional trauma I experienced reduced to a silly act of Fate.
For a while I have detested the phrase “I’m sorry” only because it’s impossible to know what is really meant by it. There’s something about apologies that no one ever tells you—at least no one ever told me. The sincerity in them can change substantially when you ask the question, why are you sorry? It’s a loophole that the most deceptive thrive inside. Listed as number two in the components to an adequate apology is the act of explaining what went wrong, which falls in direct unity with answering the question why are you sorry? The girl who wrote this apology to me is the same girl I caught cheating on me. I can still hear the voicemails she left on my phone, barely audible, sobbing hysterically, repeating, “I’m sorry, Michelle. I’m so sorry,” while still denying she had been unfaithful. I’m now more sure than I ever have been that if I would have asked why and received an honest answer, it would have been “I’m sorry I was caught,” not “I’m sorry I’ve done this and that it’s hurt you,” because she couldn’t even admit she had done it. In the years that have passed since this, she still has never admitted it—only emptily apologized for what she can’t admit to doing. The ultimate problem with “I’m sorry” is that you can never really tell when it’s born from the heart—a genuine repentance—and when it’s born from the tongue—created only to appease.
Recently I was in cahoots with a girl I thought I liked, and trusted, too. We were in that stupid phase that people of my generation refer to as “talking” (if you ask me, you’re either dating or you’re not, but that’s a different tangent I might go on later). We got into an argument over something that I considered to be a very big deal and I wanted time to myself to think about what had happened, so I asked for one simple thing: space. Long story short, she ended up exchanging messages with my cousin on social media about me, even going so far as to send him screenshots of things I had said to her, thinking it was a private conversation between just us two (as conversations should be when the message has one sender and one recipient). And when she discovered I was angry, she drove forty minutes to show up at my dorm without telling me or asking me first, only sending a text that said, “I’m outside your dorm and have a letter to give you.” Of course I didn’t go see her, nor did I get the letter she wrote for me.
When I called her to tell her I was cutting things off, I gave her the chance to explain everything—to apologize. All she could muster was, “I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry,” in a tone that lacked any degree of regret. It reminded me with a great pang of anger of the first sentence of the submission: “i don’t really know what to say to you, other than how sorry i am.” The dichotomy of an apology is in the words themselves as well as the deliverance of those words, and, needless to say, the latter statements paired with a careless tone on one hand and a typed, anonymous message on the other are ultimately futile. And that was more than enough evidence to prove that some apologies fall achingly short of achieving their purpose.
The way I see it, face-to-face apologies are the only true way to apologize to someone. If she cannot see your face, cannot glean the nuances that come with facial expressions, and cannot hear your voice, either full of or lacking genuine regret, then how is she to know your apology is honest? The girl who wrote me this submission automatically put herself at a disadvantage (that is of course, if she intended this apology to be a genuine one) because with the absence of her facial expressions and her voice I was left to fill in the blanks with the version of her that I remember instead of the version who wrote the apology (assuming, of course, those two versions are different). Needless to say, the version I remember is not a pleasant one. I read the apology with a bite of sarcasm, a blatant disregard of the pain she caused, and I think of the face that laughed at me and mocked this pain, not one that was ever sorry for anything she did. So why then, is the apology even trying? It’s only making the burden heavier, not working toward closure like a real apology should. What is a real apology if not a personal one?
There is also the need for me to talk about the superficial apology in which one person apologizes for how the other person feels, which, by the way, is not possible, therefore making for a poor excuse for any kind of adequate apology. To pull from my overarching example, the submission: “i’m sorry you didn’t think you were enough for me.” An apology for the things I thought does not span to cover the actions made by her which caused me to think those things. For instance, I will directly paste a few texts I received from her throughout our relationship and breakup:
“you don’t know shit about my relationship with ******. we are friends. i’m sorry you’re too insecure to see that.”
“i really am sick of you.”
“you used to be so different. it’s a damn shame what happened to you.”
“fuck you for leaving me like this. fuck you fuck you fuck you.”
“i hope i can find better than you. and in some ways, i already have.”
I think the simple fact alone that she cheated on me is enough to say why I felt how I did, but adding these disgusting remarks to the mix can only further my feelings of inadequacy when it came to her. The strange thing about it—the funny thing, really—is that there was never an apology made for her actions, but instead an overstepped, incompetent apology for my feelings. In other words, not an apology at all.
Apologies are not made to seek forgiveness. If you’re apologizing with the intention of being forgiven, you’re probably apologizing for the wrong reasons, not to mention seeking something that is not yours to find—at least not yet. A good while ago, two friends of mine were in a fight with one another. After offering a mediocre (non face-to-face, I must add) apology, one of the friends messaged me in regards to the other and said, “I just want her to forgive me now so our friendship can go back to normal.” I spent the next fifteen minutes or so explaining (or trying to explain) that real forgiveness comes on the watch of the person who has been hurt, not the person who has done the hurting. It is quite selfish to put a person through any degree of pain and expect three feeble words, “I am sorry,” to take that pain away, or put together the pieces of the person that have been broken, to replace the trust that has inevitably been lost.
An apology in exchange for forgiveness is a rarity, especially in cases where the pain that has been inflicted upon someone is scarring. It would help us to remember that as humans, there are certain battles that don’t leave us even until the day we die—more often than not, these battles come from deep emotional wounds that have been inflicted upon us by another human being, which is arguably the most saddening betrayal of all, especially when those wounds cannot be accompanied by a sincere, adequate apology.
What’s more is we ought not to believe the words we hear, but rather the actions we see after those words are spoken. The truth is that the most efficient of apologies is not in the words or even the deliverance of them, but in the ways we show we are sorry, and the ways we show we are worthy of being trusted again.
So what I’m asking of you is not that you apologize often, because that’s just as annoying as not apologizing at all. Instead I’m asking that you apologize under two circumstances: only when it’s necessary, and only when you mean it. Any other circumstance makes for an empty, meaningless excuse for an apology. And please, make sure you know how to do it properly. These battles I speak of—these intense emotional wounds that everyone carries somewhere inside of her—take a leap towards healing when we know the person who caused them is genuinely sorry, and the only way we know that is with a genuine apology.