🌻A lie, an excuse, and an apology walk into a bar

I forgot

Hellooo happy Friday. I hope those of you experiencing unseasonably warm Februaries are enjoying the weather without too much dread for what this means for July.

I come to you today with a confession: I think I used to be a compulsive liar.

(It got better.)

To clarify, I don’t mean that I was ever telling elaborate falsehoods for no reason. These lies only ever occurred in very specific situations. You don’t need to worry that something I said to you is rolling around in your brain somewhere, completely untrue. 

The very specific scenario is this: I’ve done something wrong, or someone thinks I’ve done something wrong. Either way, something’s happened that might cause a person to look unfavorably toward me even the slightest, and I would like to regain that favor, ASAP.

Now, my gut response is to provide an explanation for what’s happened. But my gut also tells me: This person doesn’t care what actually happened.

So we take a lil shortcut. 

Picture this: You’ve asked me to do you a favor, and you need it done by the end of the week. I spend the first two days procrastinating because I don’t actually want to do it. The next day, I start on it, but get stumped and quit. The day after that, I get sick, but I’m not sure if I’m quite sick enough yet to get out of the favor, so I don’t say anything. After a few days I’m feeling better, and I celebrate with a day trip with friends, genuinely forgetting about the favor. Finally, at the 11th hour, I remember it again — but shake it off, holding tightly onto my momentary forgetfulness as if it was still ongoing. 

I’m so sorry I didn’t do your favor. I totally forgot!

This one’s a partial truth, though it feels like a big lie since I spent so much of this fake week thinking about the fake favor. Whether partial truth or full lie, the key is that I think my real story is complicated and that the person I’m dealing with does not actually care. Or that if I share too many details I’m “making excuses.” So I shortcut. For the record, I don’t even think “I forgot” is a better excuse than the truth — in fact, “I forgot” is probably one of the worst excuses out there. 

(If I ever told you “I forgot,” that was probably a lie. Sorry about that.) 

The weird thing is, I was doing this automatically. It was never calculated or hardly even a conscious decision. It was just what I’d say. I didn’t even really notice it until the last couple of years — something like “I forgot” would come out of my mouth, and I’d think — “No I didn’t, why did I say that?”

The last specific lie I can remember was about a year ago, when I went to cancel my gym membership. It was expensive, but had been well worth the cost when I was still going a few times per week. I had stopped going for a number of reasons (a story for a different day). They make you go in-person to sign paperwork, and of course they ask you why you’re cancelling. I looked the girl right in the eye and said “Sorry, I’m too broke.” What?!!? Of all the — why did I say that?

But I know exactly why I said it: Fast answer, won’t get any follow-up questions, won’t offend her, and most of all, I am certain she doesn’t care what my real reason is.

Anyway, gym interaction aside, once I realized I was constantly telling these little lies, it was rather easy to stop. I still catch myself thinking these gut responses all the time, but it’s easy to course-correct now that it’s conscious. 

By the way, whenever your excuse for something is “I forgot,” I don’t really believe you. Sorry. But that’s a me problem. 

Apologize instead

Right now I’m reading Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. Guidara is a restaurateur, sharing his journey mastering how hospitality — how you treat people — is clutch to the restaurant experience (and of course, how this translates to life in general). 

Last night I read an anecdote about a server-customer interaction that really stuck out to me. In it, the customer comes in and orders a steak, medium-rare. After they receive their food, they call the server over and say “I ordered this medium rare, and this is rare.” The server looks at it, and can see the steak is absolutely perfect: textbook medium rare. What happens next? 

The server did exactly what I would’ve done: “Actually, sir, that is medium rare, but if you’d prefer it medium, I’d be happy to take it back to the kitchen.” 

I mean, how could you not! Dude thinks you did something wrong but you didn’t, obviously you MUST set him straight or he’ll walk away thinking you can’t make steaks!

Guidara says: Wrong. Apologize only. It doesn’t matter how wrong they are. Your goal is to make them happy and correcting them does not make them happy (and might put them off). But an apology and a new steak will do the trick.

So here we are in this scenario again: Something’s happened that might cause a person to look unfavorably toward me even in the slightest. And I would like to regain that favor, ASAP. But maybe the explanation of what happened — which I was historically compelled to shortcut — isn’t always necessary at all. Is the better move to skip straight to the apology?

Never apologize

Oh-ho! But now I have been caught in the act doing something we strong career women have been warned to avoid: apologizing!

I don’t know if you remember a few years back, there was a wave of advice for women who wanted to gain more respect in the workplace. It was all about apologizing less. (Here’s a great example: A 2019 Forbes article, “How Women Can Stop Apologizing And Take Their Power Back.”) Other, similar advice circulated around the same time, for instance about removing the word “just” and exclamation points from your emails to command more respect. 

This was all fairly convincing to me at the time, and seemed like an easy enough way to feel like I was doing something to attempt to gain an iota of professional favor (which at the time I felt I was very much lacking). Although I’ve mostly recovered from this trend (my exclamation points are back with a vengeance, babyyy!!!) it did make me notice, and remove, the more superfluous “I’m sorry”s from my life.

Even after that wave passed by, I’ve continued to hear don’t-ever-apologize sentiments in the workplace. Today, it’s less about “women apologize too much” and more about “apologizing means admitting you were wrong.” Never admit you were wrong.

But this does not jive with me at all, not only because it seems skeezy, but because it doesn’t work. I don’t think it has the effect that people think that it has — in fact I think it’s the opposite, and I think Guidara would agree with me.

What if we’re not apologizing too much, but too little?

The key to excuses and apologies

Do you guys know how to read a dichotomous key? You’re about to. To start, compare number 1 with the other number 1 and pick the statement that’s true. Then move on to the next set of numbers below it. This setup is what the pros use to identify plants 🤓

Let’s see if we can figure out when to explain, apologize, or both. 

1. I did something wrong.

2. The wronged person will feel better if they know why. » Apologize & explain

2. The wronged person will not feel better if they know why. » Apologize only

1. I did not do anything wrong. 

3. The wronged person might feel better if they know the truth.

4. I have a real relationship with this person. » Apologize & explain

4. I do not have a relationship with this person. » Explain only

3. The wronged person doesn’t care what actually happened. » Apologize only

I can probably find a million ways this doesn’t work, but it’s kind of fun conceptually. 

Two things stand out to me. First is that at no point does it take into account my feelings or intentions. I’m the server, and my only goal is to make the man with the steak happy. I know I’m right and he’s wrong, I’m annoyed, and I’m facing an injustice that this man is calling my perfect steak undercooked. But none of that matters. 

The second is this crazy last option, where I’m being wrongfully accused and don’t get to set the record straight. But it makes sense: I was never setting the record straight for the other person, I was only doing it for myself. 

To be honest, I’m going to try this out. If someone feels wronged — even if they are the ones who are wrong — I might try apologizing more often and explaining myself less. For me, apologizing will be the easy part. Resisting the urge to justify myself, not so much.

But maybe my proclivity for the shortcut-lies was a clue all along: My gut feeling that more often than not, the explanation doesn’t even matter, was correct. Instead, it’s the apologies that are the way to regain that lost favor, ASAP. 

✌️