SORRY
(NOT
SORRY)
After an easy wellbeing boost? Turns out,
refusing to apologise can max your self worth
By Lizzie PookNot so long ago, I had a pretty epic
fall. Tripping over a knee-high fence,
I smashed my chin open on the
concrete outside my flat. It was
painful. There was a lot of blood,
and the first thing I said as I stood
up shakily, raising my hand to my
mangled face, was: “Oh, God, sorry.”
I apologise in other situations, too:
if someone interrupts me while I’m
talking, if a man walks too close to
me in the street, if an overzealous
waiter spills water on my lap or
brings me burnt food. I’m the first
to admit blame for another’s
transgressions or bad manners, for
someone else’s awkwardness. It’s
embarrassing, really, and according
to the experts, it could be seriously
damaging my sense of self worth.
Yet we are in the age of apology.
Social anthropologist Kate Fox has
carried out experiments where she
deliberately bumps into hundreds
of people. About 80 per cent of
her ‘victims’ say sorry – even though
the collisions are clearly her fault.
We’ve reached peak sorry, and
the popular backlash has begun.
Earlier this year, actress Lena
Dunham penned an article about
what she called the ‘modern plague’
of over-apologising, and in 2014,
Pantene ran an ad campaign in
the US titled ‘Sorry, Not Sorry’,
encouraging women to stop
apologising at work, at home or
to ‘manspreaders’ – you know, the
bloke sitting with legs akimbo,
taking up three seats on public
transport. There’s even a Google
Chrome plug-in – Just Not Sorry –
which underlines offending terms in
your emails, such as ‘just’, ‘actually’
and ‘I’m no expert’, to help you keep
your sorries in check. “Using one
of these qualifiers can minimise
others’ confidence in you andBALL OF
BLAME5 6
Life etc wellbeing