How not to say sorry

Apart from God there is no one who is infallible. We all make mistakes at some point since we are not perfect which part of being human is. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake- but there is something wrong about not admitting it. Saying sorry usually doesn’t change what had been done or said. It doesn’t even take away the pain and hurt that someone has inflicted on you.

Sorry is just an acknowledgement that the wrong doer admits and accepts what has happened was wrong and sometimes that makes all the difference to the person who has been wronged. It lifts a burden off the person who has been wronged and allows them to move forward without feeling that what happened was somehow their fault or they deserve to be hurt.

In the movie Diary of a mad black woman the character (played by Kimberly Elise) who confronts her estranged husband reminds him of all the mean stuff he did to her during their horrible marriage. At the end of the tirade she says, “You never even said you are sorry”. Sorry means a lot especially to women. Most of the time a woman will forgive almost everything but if you don’t say the word sorry then its game over.

Sorry is one of the hardest words to say but one of the most important words you will ever say in your life. Sorry is not weakness, it shows one has strength and maturity. Sorry can fix what you never even thought could be fixed. Sorry can bring together people who have been estranged for years. Sorry can heal and restore families and all relationships in one’s life. Sorry is one of the ingredients which I believe could heal our nation from all the injustices it has experienced from others like during the PEV in 2008. It is a simple word which personally I think it is grossly underrated in the world today.

The only way children can learn to say sorry is not if their parents teach them but if they show them. There is nothing as powerful as apologizing to your children when you wrong them. In the TV series Homeland SN1 there is an episode where a father forgets to attend his son’s karate classes. Before he goes to sleep he kneels beside his bed and apologizes, oh you should have seen me choking up. It’s such a nice gesture especially for men since it is usually not considered manly to say sorry.

When children see their parents apologizing on a regular basis, they gradually learn to be accountable for their own mistakes. Instead of teaching children to apologize, parents demonstrate. Children learn from role models not by lectures.

-John Gray in the book Children are from heaven

When you apologize just say sorry and walk away. Any thing that you add might dilute and cancel out the power of sorry and even make matters worse. There are many ways to not say a genuine sorry and they include making excuses like those in the ‘sorry stories’ told by the characters in the movie for coloured girls:-

1. Baby I don’t know how she got your number, I’m sorry.

2. Baby you know I was high, I’m sorry

3. I’m only human our inadequacies are what makes us human, If we were perfect we would have nothing to strive for, so you might as well go and forgive me, I’m sorry.

4. I do you, like I do you, because I know you can take it. I’m sorry.

5. Now you know I love you, but I ain’t gonna love you the way you want me to love you, I’m sorry.

6. Shut up bitch! Told you I was sorry.

The excuses given by unapologetic wrong doers range from the idiotic ones like no.1 to the pseudo philosophical bullshit like no.3. This reminds me of the time I did some work for this ninja a few months ago and he refused to pay up. It started with him paying me on Wednesday, then it went to Saturday then it went to Wednesday again until I lost count. When I confronted him, he started telling me some bs about him always wanting to wait for all his debts to reach a “certain threshold” before he can pay up and I almost threw up at the back of my mouth. That’s when it hit me ninja has no money! Just when I think I have seen the last of human stupidity someone comes along and takes it to a whole new level. All he had to say was something like “sorry I don’t have any money right now but as soon as I get some, I will definitely send it to you and sorry for the inconvenience”. But that would have been too much to ask of him, I guess!

The other thing people do to show they are not sorry that gets my goats is blaming you. This broke ass ninja who had my chums had the gull to tell me that I did not remind him often enough. He blamed it on having a poor memory- how convenient! So I guess when you borrow a loan from the bank they should remind you huh? So when people are employed they should go to the Hr and remind them end month is approaching huh? Cheiii!

Don’t get me started on when they become aggressive and violent like in excuse no.6. so that they disarm you to not demand an apology. One of my married friends has a philandering husband whenever she asks him to stop; she gets beaten to a pulp. My debtor also threatened me with karma and I was like what! are you like five? Maybe you should ask karma to help you pay up while you are at it sweetie!

Wait it gets even juicier when wrong doers hide behind religion. Another ninja who owes me money and when I confront him he invokes the name of God. He always keeps reminding me that he is a Christian. It is so beautiful I wish I could record this bs and upload the link on my blog.  If you have to keep reminding people you are Christian then you probably aren’t. Maybe you are just trying to convince yourself.

(This is the reason why pastors like what’s-his-face gets away with deceiving his congregation he could heal sickness but instead pays prostitutes to pretend to be sick and healed. Some people relax when someone says they are Christian, they have fear of questions concerning religion. To yours truly unless you have a halo on your head or show me a burning bush it don’t mean sh*t until I see if you walk the talk. You can talk all day till the cows come home but if your behaviour doesn’t tally, it don’t mean jack) Nowadays he plays hide-and-seek with me and he always win coz he is playing alone.

Don’t remind me of the its-never-my-fault guys like in no 1 & 2. It’s always alcohol, the traffic, the rain, the dog-ate-my-homework blah blah blah. It is always one thing or another which makes them hurt you. Personally I think they should be man enough to overcome this obstacles and show up for you if they cared enough.

The most hilarious one is the crying and melodramatic stunts. 

 A dude who is my friend was caught cheating last week and he started crying, gawd it was beautiful. He was like on one knee, drooling and weeping and hyperventilating nsh*t.  Ghai! If you thought chiqs are ugly when they cry, you should have seen this guy act! He should have gotten a standing ovation. Wipe that. He should have gotten the twenty-one-gun salute, fireworks display, full fanfare complete with a celestial choir to celebrate. My pal almost forgave him on the spot!

When all fails, some remind the person they have wronged of a mistake they did in 19-sikumbuki. This is mostly used by women because they have like a vault of memories in their heads that is never erased. They always remember what you said verbatim and they are good with dates too. I met an old high school mate and she reminded me of how I wronged her in 1999- I almost chocked on my food. That’s 10 years plus!

The worst thing is when someone who has been caught pants down starts denying everything. I guess denial ain’t just another river in Egypt huh? A few years back some two guys hit each other in their cars in a traffic jam. Luckily the police was in the vicinity to intervene. It was discovered that Lets call him *Jim was wrong. The other person agreed to let it go if only Jim said sorry. Can you believe ninja felt he was too grown and G to say sorry. The police tried to get him to apologizes but alas. Now he paid for all the damages over the simple word “sorry”.

There are those people whose way of saying sorry is doing something nice back to you. Ain’t nothing worse than someone thinking they can buy back your affections. They will make you promises to make you forget how bad you felt when they wronged you. It is even more annoying when, after the dust has settled they do not even bother to deliver on their promise. Or they choose to flatter you or say something condescending like in no.4 which is even more annoying than the offense.

Other proud people will stay away from you and wait for you to cool down. This one usually irks me because when they give me time, my anger actually escalates such that by the time they come back I’m fresh out of second chances.

Now the other annoying people are those who say sorry but invariably repeat the same mistake over and over ad nauseum. They say too many sorry to appoint that you say what the character said in the aforementioned movie “I can’t use another sorry”. Sorry is only meaningful if you do not repeat the mistake again!

Next time you say sorry mean it and do not repeat the same mistake again.

Have a nice day!

Ta ta