'Sorry' (for, not if)

... is the hardest thing to say

Because to various extents, it means you lowering your pride and seeing that you were wrong. It exists in the whirlpool of emotions that include the embarrassed exclamation, the sweet plea, the drooped posture and lowered gaze, and of course the rigid back and clenched teeth 'sorry'.

Then why do people apologize? Because they care about the other party, or/and at least the relationship between them, or/and how they portray themselves. Also, for most people, (tied to the previous point), it provides a sense of relief/gladness at the restoration of 'status-quo'.

But even 'sorry' has a few levels. On a basic level, there exists the simple i-forgot-to-do-something-i-said-i-would-do and the i-insisted-im-right-but-then-im-actually-wrong sorrys.

On a deeper level where 'sorry's are dragged out from long-drawn convos and issues that actually involve a range of scenarios / concepts that one could apologize for- one needs to be explicit about what the sorry is for. Or else, it only benefits the party saying it. It provides a false sense of relief/gladness at this 'restoration of status-quo' because the other party has no idea what the apology is for.

Worse- if the other party assumes that the apology is for another thing, and acts accordingly. This almost always leads to further and greater misunderstanding and conflict in the future.

An angsty me would say these apologies are a 'cheat way to cover all ground and make yourself feel better', but i understand that many times it is very difficult to even figure out what one is sorry for, with the explosion of thoughts swirling around in our complex and contradictory minds.

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Why?

Why am I talking about it.

Recently I had a conversation where I asked someone "what are you sorry for" in one of our long convos, and it reminded me of how I used to dislike the word 'sorry' because of a past relationship. When W first started apologising with that single infamous 'sorry', I would assume he was saying sorry for doing it. It seemed straightfoward enough at that time.

So in subsequent times when the same thing kept happening, I was increasingly upset and bewildered, and I think we were just looking at the same 3D object from different points of view. But it took a long time for me to even find out that he was apologizing for something else.

Glad another one is penned down here lest I forget!