Apologies

22 Jul 2007
apologies

First a confession. My name is Defying Gravity, and I watch Big Brother. Yes, it's shameful but true...

Anyway, tonight I was watching and admiring the BB apology technique. I personally am not very good at appropriate apology giving. I tend to either apologise profusely when there's actually nothing to apologise for - this reaches its pinnacle when I automatically apologise to inanimate objects for bumping into them - or find myself tied up by a British emotional reticence and have to make a huge effort to actually apologise rather than burying my head in the sand/running away/emigrating to avoid the issue. Ostriches and Jonah are nothing compared to me. However I was amused by an apology on BB tonight. It was a development on the 'I'm sorry for upsetting you' (but I'm not sorry for what I did because I still think I'm right and I'm only apologising so that you'll talk to me again and stop throwing things at my head) technique, and went something like 'I'm sorry, you still shouldn't have said what you did and you were well out of order, but I'm sorry anyway'. Well at least it's honest... although can't help wondering exactly what the person thought they were saying sorry for, or whether they genuinely thought that 'I'm sorry for my behaviour but it wasn't my fault, actually it was your fault' counts as an apology.