If you don’t say exactly what it is you’re sorry for, it can ruin an otherwise good apology. It’s evasive. The person you’re apologizing to may feel like you’re not facing up to it. It seems insincere. So when you apologize, don’t say you’re sorry for “what happened.” Or “the unfortunate incidents.” Or “yesterday.” Or “the way that went down.” Or “the stuff at the party.” Or “the events leading to the whole thermonuclear kerfuffle.”
But what if you can’t be specific because you have no memory whatsofrackingever of what you did? Or any memory of that whole night/day/semester?
Georg Schoenerer has no memory of publishing the news that Kaiser Wilhelm had died. Which hadn’t actually happened. Which Schoenerer will go to jail for. Unclear whether his visitors have any memory of getting dressed in the morning.
A relative once moved in with a nice guy. He turned out also to be a mean-mouthed drunk. He said horrible things, things meant to hurt. The next day he’d apologize. When he apologized, he clearly felt picked on – okay okay, so he was rude! So he cursed! Yeah, yeah, SORRY IF I HURT YOUR FEELINGS. He was so dismissive that my relative began to suspect he didn’t remember what he was dismissing.
One evening this happened and my relative recorded it. The next day she played the recording for the hungover guy. Listening in shock, he sat down on the floor. “I… do… not… remember that,” he said. “Even hearing it, I don’t remember it. I know it’s me. Because that’s my voice. I don’t know what to say.” He was horrified that he’d said things so ugly, so vicious.
(Did he stop drinking? No. Did she move out? Yes.)
I would totally remember if I ordered the fleet to attack. But what DID I do? I don’t actually remember. Not. A. Clue.
Sarah Hepola’s written a fascinating book, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, which takes a personal look at this phenomenon.
Hepola relates spending years as a heavy drinker with regular blackouts. She knew it was happening. She writes, “The psychology of the blackout drinker is one of dodge and denial. Things you can’t remember become epic in your mind. Five minutes of unremembered conversation can a shame you carry through the rest of your life. Or it can be shrugged off entirely. I did both…”
She tells stories of waking up in strange beds with no idea how she got there. No idea who she’s in bed with.
She also tells of a conversation she had after she got sober, with an old friend she’d lost touch with. Somehow. When did they last see each other? Oh – at your birthday party!
Her friend, Allison, says “Oh my God. Do you remember that night?” Hepola doesn’t. This time she doesn’t try to cover it up or change the subject. She admits she doesn’t remember.
“You fell down my staircase.”
“Yeah, I used to do that.”
“My stairs were marble! It was terrifying. …You don’t remember this at all?”
So I yelled “Toujours gai, toujours gai!” I’m clear on that. Then what?
Hepola writes, “No, but I remembered how I woke up the next morning, and I thought: How did that awesome party end? Maybe I should send Allison a text. ‘Had a great time last night! The part I can remember was amazing!’
“But I didn’t send anything like that. In fact, I stopped talking to Allison for two years.”
Allison thought Hepola hated her, but Hepola was just avoiding her for fear of being faced with whatever it was she had done. (Maybe she didn’t want to know how she got those bruises….) “[Y]ou ended up cutting people out without even knowing why. You got a hunch that something bad happened, so—snip, snip. Easier that way.”
Hepola had a lot of conversations like the one with Allison that after she quit, and she imagines a blank apology form:
Dear _____, I’m so sorry I _____ all those years ago. You must have felt very _____ when I _____. I drank too much _____ that night, and was not in my right mind.
Which could be good if she got specific enough. And if there was also a clause about how it won’t happen again because she’s quit drinking.
Most of the time vagueness in apologies doesn’t mean we don’t remember what happened. We just wish we didn’t.
Among other things, specificity shows that you remember what you did. Or that you believe what you’ve been told you did.
WOW. This … explains MUCH to me about some specific people. I never imagined the vague apology/ suddenly not speaking to me could have been because someone literally had no memory…and was avoiding what they’d forgotten… but, yeah, most of the time, that’s NOT the case!
If you’re right… you never imagined because they never wanted anyone to be able to imagine….
Blackout is a great book. Not just about explaining the self-justifying and not-remembering behavior of alcoholics, but also about WHY someone — especially a female someone — might feel the need to drink to feel comfortable in the world in the first place.