“Well, sorry doesn’t help!”
“Don’t be sorry—just don’t do it again!”
And my personal favorite, in response to my eloquently worded, hand written and hand delivered letter of apology: “What’s the point of the note.”
There is absolutely no use in apologizing. I am simply a bad person. Other people commit rapes and murders and thefts, but they don’t bat an eyelash. I say one word wrong and get beat down.
There is no point.
Just out of curiosity–what was the word?
Dude, consider yourself lucky. When I muck things up, realise that I’ve mucked them up, feel remorseful, and try to apologise (all this in regards to the SO, incidentally), I get the response of ‘No. Don’t be sorry.’ I think she dosn’t think there’s any use in being sorry, because it won’t CHANGE anything, but the tone she uses makes me feel like the lowest scum of the earth. I mean, I screwed up, and I’m feeling remorseful. Whether it changes anything or not, I feel SORRY. It dosn’t make anything better, it dosn’t change my mistakes, but damnit, I’m still sorry!
I meant figuratively, Wabbit. This isn’t just one incident.
I don’t know how to explain it. I want so badly to do right, and I try and try and try, but no one is perfect, me least of all. So when I make a mistake, I rush to apologize, and people act as if the apology is a worse wrong than my original trangression.
I should do a web search, but I’m too upset right now, to find out what will/is happen/ing to Captain Waddle. Someone started a thread saying how honorable he is because he admitted he fucked up. I can’t help thinking, though, that that gives the Navy license to throw the entire book at him. When you admit you’re wrong, you admit you’re a bad person. It’s better to weasel, like Ollie North; then you can run for the Senate, even if you don’t win. (Or was it Congress he ran for? I’m not into research at the moment.)
Mnementh, I’m female.
And what you described sounds very, very familiar…and that is the problem. My mistakes live after me; I can’t change them, I just get another reason to hate myself. I just feel like I’m not as good as other people, and I should drop out of society before I do more damage.
The guy who split my lip because I wouldn’t submit to being date-raped? I don’t think he felt bad about it. The person who conned me and stole my wallet? She didn’t feel bad. The guy who filed a complaint and got me fired from Denny’s, and the woman who did the firing? They thought I deserved it. And the hell of it is, none of those things would have happened if I hadn’t been trying to be nice.
Some people take shit. Some people just take. I am one of those who takes shit.
I’ve always thought, with Alexander Pope, that one should never be ashamed to admit having been wrong; because that is only admitting that one is wiser today than yesterday.
Consider the apology for your benefit. You are the better person, you faced up to something you did. If you offered the apology for their benefit as well and they didn’t take it, well screw them. Never apologize twice (unless there is some compelling reason that makes you suspect you were misunderstood).
Someone won’t accept your apology?
Fuck 'em.
They weren’t worth the air you breathed to speak it.
“Well, sorry doesn’t help!” - It’s better than what you deserve, shitball.
“Don’t be sorry—just don’t do it again!” - See, maggotbrain, If I’m not sorry that I did it, I probably WILL do it again. What don’t you understand?
“What’s the point of the note.” - Nothing, considering the waste of ink it was written to.
You tell 'em girl.
Rilch, everybody who has responded here is right. Fuck the assholes. However, because you are a kind and sensitive person that gives them, in their minds, license to dump on you.
**
Which makes him all the more honorable (you gotta know how guys think for some things to make sense). I didn’t see the thread, but I saw the man on TV and would be honored to serve under him. He took the blame AS WAS HIS JOB. I am SO SICK of weasels like Ollie North.
Thank you all. I also have to remind myself that there’s a reason pencils have erasers.
And Mnementh, I don’t presume to know about your relationship, but it doesn’t sound healthy to be with someone so judgemental. What, pray tell, happens when your SO makes a mistake?
The value of an honest apology does not depend one jot or tittle (I love that phrase) on how it is reacted to. If it’s an honest one, that doesn’t matter; what matters is that it has been given. “No use”? When I think “honest apology”, “utility” isn’t a concept that’s a necessary neighbor.
A dishonest apology is a worthless thing, and it’s quite possible that many people who become irritated at “I’m sorry, so sorry” have received too many ones of the dishonest variety. There’s an emotional game some people play that I’ve seen referred to as “Schlemiel”. Playing Schlemiel entails fucking up, and then apologizing to people who got hurt by the fuck-up. When they accept, the player gets points.
Now obviously, the proper response to having ever been played at like that is to simply learn to avoid the company of the kind of wastes of skin that like to do so, and not develop a chip on the shoulder about apologies in general.
Rilchiam,
I am TOTALLY with you on this. It does sometimes seem like the nicer you try to be, the more you get the stuffin’ kicked outta ya. I have found myself apologizing for a lot of silly things I’ve done that have annoyed folks about me over the years… stuff like being late, forgetting to call, etc. Look, I’ll admit that these things aren’t polite, but there are worse things people can and will do to each other in a relationship. And I gotta say that my LEAST favorite response to some of my repeated offenses has been, “Don’t spend so much time being sorry. Change your behavior instead.”
I don’t like that answer very much, because it tends to make me more nervous and ill-at-ease, and therefore more prone to screwing up more, and round and round she goes. Eventually I just get fed up and remember to take up for myself. Sometimes, ya just gotta give it right back, beacuse as others have mentioned (and as we all know; all together now!): pobody’s nerfect! er, that is… well, you get the idea! 
I hear ya, Cranky. It’s like, “Okay, I was wrong; I deserve to be punished.” “Well, if you know you were wrong, why did you do it?” WTF?
Rilchiam, I feel for you. And I understand your point.(at least, I think I do)
Apologies should be accepted if they are sincere. But an apology doesn’t take the sting away from being hurt. That takes a little time. This may sound freakish, but when I’m hurt I don’t want, nor will I accept, an immediate apology. This is the time when it’s best to steer clear of me, lest I retaliate in some overt or passive/aggressive way that I will soon regret.
Later, when my head clears a bit, I will be more accepting of an apology.
Maybe the nimrod in question is like me?
I think spooje has it right. Moreover, sometimes offering an apology, and getting it slapped down are both steps in a complicated dance. It’s like wolves baring their throats, and getting nipped (more or less painfully) depending on how painful the original hurt was. The apology was still a useful thing, but the strike back is a reflex to hurt back, depending on how much the first person was hurt. The return reflex is to say, “see if I apologize to you again, asshole.”
Offering an apology is opening up to an extent, making oneself vulnerable. When that vulnerability results in an attack, the immediate response is to draw back and counterattack (“Asshole!”). What you should do is up to you; analysis is not solution. But taking it, accepting it as a reflection of the depth of the original offence, and walking away is another option. I just suggest that the response really has little to do with whether the apology is heard and accepted or not.