“Oops, my bad!” I exclaim after a stranger bumps into me with their shopping cart at the grocery store.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but…” I type in an email to someone I genuinely need to reach.
“Oh, I apologize,” I’ve said to servers when they mistakenly bring the wrong dish.
“I’m really sorry,” I tell my kids when breakfast isn’t coming together fast enough for their impatient little faces.
“Sorry for interrupting,” I mumble to the clerk at the gas station, who seems completely oblivious to my presence and my need for assistance.
With each apology, it feels like I’m conveying, “I apologize for simply existing.” It’s as if I’m saying sorry for not having superhuman abilities, for requiring people to do their jobs, for being a woman, for sending an email, or for standing in a spot someone else wanted to occupy. Essentially, I’m apologizing for taking up space.
Why do I do this? Well, studies suggest that women tend to apologize more frequently. Fantastic! One research project revealed that women often have a lower threshold for what we deem offensive, leading us to apologize for typical, everyday occurrences. Furthermore, women are generally more empathetic, likely to consider how others feel. This results in the overuse of “sorry”—a word that encapsulates all those inner submissive feelings in one small, irritating package.
A few years back, a Pantene commercial pointed out how often women say sorry. It depicted various scenarios where women apologized (making me cringe because it felt all too familiar), and then flipped those situations to show the same women confidently expressing their needs without an apology. They didn’t seem rude; they just appeared to possess a healthy self-assurance. The contrast was striking and thought-provoking.
Recently, my partner and I noticed that our son was picking up the habit of apologizing for things that didn’t warrant it: chopping apples in the kitchen, his sister’s behavior, or when we asked him a question. He’d say it quickly, almost like a reflex, with his eyes downcast as if he wished he could vanish. This drove us crazy.
To tackle this, we established a family rule: no one could mindlessly say sorry. If someone felt the need to apologize, it must be for a legitimate reason, like being inconsiderate, rather than using it as a conversational filler. The person receiving the apology would then acknowledge it with a simple “Thank you.”
This approach has been effective, especially because our 5-year-old is quite strict about following rules. While she can be a little bossy, she isn’t an over-apologizer like her brother and me. This change has made our apologies more meaningful, reserved for moments that truly require them, rather than being tossed around casually.
I’ve also been working on reducing my apologies in public. I’m actively removing unnecessary “sorries” from emails, refraining from apologizing when someone bumps into me, and simply asking servers for what I ordered without the guilt of potentially inconveniencing them. It’s challenging and requires effort, but I’m determined to step off the apology treadmill. I hope my child joins me in this journey.
Sorry, not sorry!
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