How do you feel about apologies?

[Progster]

An apology can't change anything, what is done is done. But it does show an acceptance of responsibility for the wrongdoing, with the hope that the person may learn from their mistake.

 

[Sasha22]

Well actually my view of apologies feels more mechanical than that. By "fixing" I don't necessarily mean fixing the relationship or the damage done to the other person. I see it as fixing the situation, i.e. bringing order back to it: if a problem was my doing, I'm sorry and if I can fix the damage, I will; if I can fix the relationship, great; if none of that is possible, then at least I've acknowledged that I was the one who caused the problem/brought disorder in the world and I tried to convey it to the other person so that we're as clear as possible about that.

Maybe that acknowledgment is the maximum that I can do - if it is, then that's what I must do (the maximum I can do to bring order back).

Maybe this sounds weird

 

[The Pandector]

I was in my tiny fishing boat, first cast of the season, looking for bass. Into the branches, rats. Ten minutes later, second cast. Bang. Spent the next 20 minutes literally being pulled around the lake by an angry Muskie on 6# test. I’d give you the details, but what’s the point? It’s just another fish story.

Nobody believes fish stories because they have been legendarily abused. My fish story is 100% real, but it has all the value of most of the apologies I’ve heard. I resent that, but don’t apologize.

 

[Sasha22]

I was in my tiny fishing boat, first cast of the season, looking for bass. Into the branches, rats. Ten minutes later, second cast. Bang. Spent the next 20 minutes literally being pulled around the lake by an angry Muskie on 6# test. I’d give you the details, but what’s the point? It’s just another fish story.

Nobody believes fish stories because they have been legendarily abused. My fish story is 100% real, but it has all the value of most of the apologies I’ve heard. I resent that, but don’t apologize.

I'm sorry
(bad joke?)

 

[Outsider]

The decision to apologize or not depends on a situation. As WhitewaterWoman noted, you should apologize if you bump into someone; the same advice applies to any unwanted physical contact. Otherwise, very few situations require an apology.

If I chose to be rude to someone for whatever purpose, I don’t hesitate to go ahead and do it, unless I change my mind afterwards, which happened only once, I don’t burden myself with apology. In my mind, the insult was justified and the person got what was coming to him/her.

There were instances when people accused me of being rude, but I just ignored their comments.

Perhaps, some NTs expect an apology from autistic people because they think that a crude remark was due to person’s “poor communication skills”. However, in the same situation they don’t expect apology from fellow NTs because they know damn well that the comment was deliberate. As NT, I wouldn’t ask a person to apologize, I rather reply with an insult of my own.

It seems to me that the majority of discussions about apologies are too abstract to be practical. It would be more useful to discuss the situations when it is not clear how some autistic people should act without causing unintentional outcomes.