"I was glad to be offered the apology—and about time, too—but I was far from ready to accept it. Not that it was a bad apology, but it never quite rose to the level I’d expected, and so I declined. Then, a day or two later, the apology was resubmitted and I was asked again if I would accept. Perhaps, I said, but not in that form.
As a matter of principle, I find it hard to accept an apology that is tendered too quickly. What is the apologist saying by acting with such haste, and what am I, by accepting the apology, saying about myself? It’s possible to demean oneself by sinking to the level of those who promiscuously accept any sort of apology. Also, in doing so, would I be veering dangerously close to forgiveness?
I realize that there has been considerable pressure on me to accept this apology and (to use the vernacular) “move on.” After all, I’ve repeatedly been told, it was being offered in good faith. More than that, it was being offered as a full and complete apology, nothing half-baked, and I was assured by several of the apologist’s friends that there was true regret at what had been said—that he might not even have realized that he’d said what he’d said and was particularly distressed by his lack of sensitivity; furthermore, even if he had realized what he’d said, he might have had no idea what those words would mean to someone like me. But what was uttered was nonetheless so hurtful—well, not entirely hurtful, but theoretically painful, and deeply uncomfortable—that a simple apology never seemed to be enough. And there was something else: would I, by acquiescing, be ratifying the worthiness of the apology? It’s so easy to say, “Yes, I accept your apology,” but that could be just a mere step away from saying, “Yes, I accept you.” That’s not going to happen.
Just the other day, someone bumped into me on the subway, a seeming accident, although one can never be sure. A woman actually brought the rubber tip of her crutch down on my left big toe, as if neither I nor my toe existed in her insular world.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Not quite good enough,” I replied. “You’re sorry, but tell that to my toe, the one you might have mangled.”
The look with which she then favored me was brimming with hostility, as if she somehow expected me to trade my physical discomfort for her halfhearted “Sorry.” If she had said, “I’m really, truly sorry that I caused you pain—you must forgive me,” I might have given it consideration, but nothing like that had been voiced. And although I was tempted to respond with equal force, I did not see how I could, especially since she was getting around with some sort of handicap. (Her advanced age did not enter into my calculations, but neither was I able wholly to ignore it.)
But the incident on the subway got me to thinking about the original brouhaha (or, possibly, it was a fracas). I mulled long and hard about the nature of any apology, the degrees of regret, the limits of pardon, and about absolution, the steps of contrition. I’ve concluded that simple remorse is barely worth the trouble of expressing it, and that abjectness may be more calculated than real. I thought about the aches and hurts that we cause one another, however inadvertently, and about how inadequate our rejoinders can be. These musings were prompted by the message that the original offender finally sent—the one accompanied by wine and flowers and Belgian chocolate and a note saying, “I hope that by now you will accept my absolute and heartfelt apology, which I offer without mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that we can finally put this matter behind us.”
Nice try, I said to myself, and you’re getting closer, but the words “this matter” began to gnaw at me, to irritate and, finally, to infuriate me, as if the thing that had been spoken could be reduced to a “matter” rather than a question of respect for the inner core of me and of my beliefs—in the end, a view that touched upon my basic humanity. I realized that I needed to seek an apology for yet another offense, however unintended, or else let those words linger like more slurs, which only become more repellent as they age. I’m sorry that I feel this way, but it’s not something for which I could ever apologize, even were an apology called for."
Jeffrey Frank, The New Yorker
Some slight, satirical humor
