It's Hard for Me to Say I'm Sorry (Even Though I'm an Apology Expert)
A good apology can be a healing, even beautiful, act of repair.
“Sorry” may be the most potent word we have. Good apologies fix rifts, build bridges, shore up foundations. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lines of lacquer and gold, an artfully deployed apology doesn’t make cracks magically disappear or erase the past. The seams, now burnished, still show. This can be gorgeous. The very thing —a vessel, a relationship — that seemed shattered beyond repair can be mended, and the process of fixing the fracture makes the entity stronger than it was before. The act of repairing a breach adds nuance, depth and beauty, turning a fissure into a feature.
I have been parsing apologies for two decades, first as a parenting columnist (who was also the mother of a particularly feral toddler who spent pretty much all of nursery school in the Consequences Chair) and then as a writer for Jewish publications (where I pondered penitence and forgiveness every High Holiday season). For the past decade, my friend Susan McCarthy and I have been running an apology watchdog website called SorryWatch. In our new book, Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies, we go deep on the power of a perfectly deployed “sorry” — as well as how to deliver it, how to elicit it from someone else, and when not to apologize or forgive.
But doing repair work right takes work, care, finesse. That’s why when someone says “sorry,” then quickly adds, “let’s move on,” or “can you forgive me?” we often feel anger, even if we can’t quite articulate why. We’re unsatisfied because the other person is trying to render invisible the break they themselves created. Acts of repair shouldn’t be something people rush through in the hope that others will forget what they did.
And “sorry” often accompanies some unsavory linguistic bedfellows. “Sorry if.” “Sorry but.” “Sorry you.” Sorry if you mistook my friendliness for sexual intent. Sorry, but someone who actually understands the corporate world wouldn’t need to have this information spoon-fed to them. Sorry my jokes are challenging and edgy. Sorry, but you provoked me. Sorry you took that so personally. Sorry I forgot to be “woke.” Sorry about how fragile you are. Sorry I criticized your weight/looks/clothes/gender presentation/speaking voice, but I only did it because I care about you. This is the language of an apology that does not make things better.
A good apology, on the other hand, is healing, even beautiful, when it comes from someone we love. A real, meaningful, thoughtful apology by an actual human — a stranger, even! — makes us feel that this planet isn’t an entirely terrible place. Good apologies are the kinds of sorries that show us a glimpse of the world we want to live in. A drunk dude who stole a restaurant’s Santa statue — but when he sobered up, brought the owner flowers and offered to volunteer in the kitchen. A comedian who punched down at readers of romance novels — then did hilarious and clever penance. A cranky driver who thought a young woman had selfishly, wrongly parked in a spot reserved for veterans —then made amends publicly and sincerely when it turned out the woman was, indeed, a veteran.
In the book, we also delve into academic research on apology, which is often flawed. People tend to under-report negative feelings. They fail to understand their own motives. They’re determined to see themselves as more sinned against than sinning. And social scientists often neglect to look deeply into gender and race. Being deemed “unapologetic” or “angry” goes over differently if you’re a woman. Even more so if you’re a Black woman.
The word “sorry” is endlessly elastic, depending on the verbal, situational, and behavioral company it keeps. It’s a word that can save a relationship, or make you want to punch someone in the face.
I’ve been writing about “sorry” for 21 years. And I’ll never be sorry for all it’s taught me.