or to keep the peace, maybe you think it’s not a big deal but your partner, friend, coworker, parent feels otherwise.
Do you apologize just to validate him?
I always though if I don’t feel bad about it, fuck it, I’m not apologizing, deal with it. It’s not my fault you’re so thin skinned. Grow up.
Now I’m thinking I should be more empathetic and apologize, just to make the aggravated person feel validated, even though I don’t feel bad (or that bad).
This gets more complicated because many times coworkers feel offended because I don’t share my personal life with them or I’m so concentrated on my job that I don’t notice them. Do I apologize for not noticing them?
Thats sort of disingenuous and also inauthentic tho. Its really not helping anyone when you affirm non-existsnt grievances
Is it a grievance or mild irritation? People constantly annoy each other over small things. If someone is genuinely deeply angry to the point where it’s a grievance about the little things in the original post, that’s a different matter.
If “sorry” for small inconveniences feels wrong, other vocalizations can take their place and serve the same purpose. Like “whoops” for dropping something or “hello, what do you need? i have to get back to this pretty quickly, though” for getting pulled out of work by someone with a question.
It doesn’t feel fake to me because this is just how “sorry” is used in these contexts. “social lubricant to move on from minor inconveniences and acknowledge the other party’s humanity” may not be in the dictionary, but it’s how it’s used over and over again, and that’s what language is. Shared, agreed on meaning. Is this prone to huge amounts of error? yup! Communication sucks when you aren’t naturally inclined to pick up non literal meanings for things.
Normally, I’d tack on an apology here for rambling, or going on so long, just as an acknowledgement that my inability to say things consisely is an inconvenience to read for other people. That would make this a shorter paragraph, and hopefully make people more inclined to engage in their reply to me with good faith, since I’ve shown my awareness that what I typed could’ve been a slog for them to read.