Being too apologetic might make me sound insincere, but I genuinely am sorry about everything. Help!

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz

Dear Hera,

Inspired by Chatty Cathy’s recent letter to you, I suddenly realised that “oh, maybe I can ask for Hera’s advice, instead of just wishing an angel could descend from the heavens, bop me on the head, and cure me of my problems.” 

I have a similar problem to Cathy, but a little to the left. Instead of being overly talkative to the point of annoying everybody, I am overly *apologetic*, to the point of annoying everybody – even myself! Being too apologetic might make me sound like an insincere person, but the problem is that I genuinely *am* sorry about everything. I feel like I’m rude when I email people, or take them up on offers freely provided, or eat food shared with me, or or or (envision a seal here if you must)…

I’m keenly aware that I’m socially awkward. I behave really well when I am in a “role”, but suck at talking to people in more casual settings, and often struggle to stop a conversation from dying. When I do manage to speak, I’m invariably apologising for *something*, and now I’m worried that I’m cheesing everybody off!

Help me please, Hera!

Nervous Nellie

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz

Dear NN,

I will admit up front I’m an apology apologist. As a longtime fan of the grovelling cultures (Minnesota, Canada, Japan) I believe a little performative humility is the social glue that holds the fabric of our society together. 

I may be in the minority here. There was a time in recent memory where you couldn’t open a Sunday magazine without encountering an article with a title like “Sorry Not Sorry: Why Women Should Reclaim Their Power and Stop Apologising.” The radical feminist theory underpinning this seemed to be that men don’t apologise nearly as much as women do, and if men do something it must be good. 

Maybe this advice makes sense in the boardroom. But most of the time, saying “sorry, but I ordered the Halibut,” isn’t damning linguistic evidence of a female inferiority complex, but a harmless conversational lubricant we use to show others we’re not assholes. 

Being a chronic over-apologiser is a different problem.

It seems clear from your letter that you suffer from some pretty intense social anxiety, and worry your presence is a burden to others. First of all, this sucks and I hate this for you. Feeling like you have to constantly apologise for the fact of your existence is no way to live. Cutting down on your apologies isn’t going to solve the big issue here, and my main recommendation is to work on consciously building up your self-esteem because you seem like a lovely person who is unnecessarily haunted by the idea that you’re not good enough for others. 

However, I think your interpretation of why people find over-apologising awkward is a little off. You don’t want others to think you’re insincere. But I’m willing to bet your sincerity is precisely the issue. 

An apology is usually a call and response. One person apologises and the other person replies “no worries.” I wonder if over-apologising is your way of unintentionally seeking reassurance from others that you’re not bothering them and they don’t secretly hate you? The problem with constantly seeking reassurance is that it quickly becomes exhausting to be around. When you batter people with apologies, you’re unintentionally showing them you secretly fear they’re judging you harshly, which isn’t a great way to build trust and camaraderie. Nervousness is contagious, and by constantly calling attention to your own discomfort in social settings, you end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

So what can be done? 

It can be hard to kick a conversational habit cold turkey. But as a first step, you could try replacing the word “sorry” with “thanks.” 

I hate to admit it, but this ubiquitous “customer service lifehack” seems to work. Telling a line of angry customers “Thank you so much for your patience” is a million times more effective than saying “Sorry for the long wait.” Most nervous apologies can be easily reimagined as expressions of gratitude, and they work a lot better because people like being thanked a lot more than they like being apologised to.

I’m not saying it works in every context. “Thank you for being so understanding that I ran over your dog” is not an acceptable employment of the foundational principles. But let’s take a better example. You say you feel rude when people share food with you. But apologising to someone who has offered you a plate of dinner is a lot unintentionally ruder than learning how to give a warm and sincere thank you. An apology makes the situation all about you and your discomfort. A thank you makes it all about their kindness. 

I know this is not an easy habit to break. For some people, it can be a million times harder to accept the love and generosity of others than it is to accept their blame and criticism. But it’s an important thing to learn to do because it will set you free. 

It took me a long time to realize that accepting help from others is a wise and righteous thing to do because people genuinely love to help. At the risk of sounding like Dale Carnegie, one of those annoying business “hacks” which I believe in my heart to be true (simply because I know it would work on me) is that a good way to get someone on your side is to ask them for a favour. As far as I can tell, the secret psychological reason this works boils down to the fact that most people like other people, and are flattered and proud when given an opportunity to help them.

Yes, you should stop apologising so much. But not because you’re a bad person who is secretly irritating everyone you come into contact with. It should be part of a wider quest to learn to trust that, for the most part, people wish you well and have your best interests at heart. Even if you don’t really believe it, this is one of those situations in which I would strongly recommend the “fake it till you make it” approach. Learning to feel safe in the company of others isn’t as easy as changing your vocabulary. But changing your vocabulary might be a step in the right direction.