Lost In The Middle Of Somewhere ... Else

Viked from SongCoyote:

( Some questions are more philosophical than others )

-E-

From the people who brought us the Love Languages meme (that's my post from back when, and another, while I was at it), here comes Languages of Apology (that's the actual quiz) - and once again I find myself realizing that it's missing something important to me.

To start with, here are my scores:

7 Making Restitution
5 Accepting Responsibility
4 Expressing Regret
4 Genuinely Repenting
0 Requesting Forgiveness

You have chosen Making Restitution as your primary Apology Language. You find it easiest to forgive when action is taken to compensate for the wrong done to you. You listen not only to admission of fault, but also for the question, What can I do to make it better?

These are apparently very similar to my friends' scores, which makes sense given our backgrounds and the cultural trends implicit in these languages - Weregild is a Germanic thing, Penance is perhaps more Mediterranean, or at least Abrahamic. But of course that's only very sweeping generalization.

Ryn and I noticed immediately that something was missing that we both need - and in some cases it was specifically excluded in ways that make us wonder what the hell other people are thinking.

Sometimes the options included wanting people to say "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking - if I'd been thinking I'd have realized that you're right."

You know, there are times that might make me feel better, but in many cases, like the instance of "Your mother knew how you felt about a matter and knowingly went against your wishes." our first thought was "I want her to explain what she based her decision on, such that my wishes were not the priority." And at those times, I really don't want to hear that she wasn't thinking, because that's worse.

This was not involved, or even really implied, in any of the given options. The closest I could get in that particular question was assuming it was a response to the query "What can I do to regain your respect?" which doesn't sit right with me, because it feels like that focuses on what she would want from me - respect - rather than on what I would need from her. This is also why requesting forgiveness doesn't impress me at all as a form of apology, which explains the '0'. I have no issue with someone asking me for forgiveness, but I parse that as them asking me for something they need, NOT apologizing to me for my sake.

I find some of the differentiations they do make less than useful as well. For example, I consider offering to make restitution (which is really what these things are, since it's about what you SAY, not what you then DO) to just be a preferred form of Accepting Responsibility, which is the real issue here IMHO. More to the point, it's what I consider evidence that you actually understand that you're responsible for your results, and that actions have consequences. Otherwise it's just empty words. "Oh, yeah, totally my fault. (Not that I care, or will change anything.)" Similarly, I don't see any difference between Expressing Regret and Genuinely Repenting.

So my REAL apology languages are:

1: Accept Responsibility, preferably by Offering Weregild that you actually believe you can uphold and intend to follow through with.
2: Explain Yourself and demonstrate that understanding my side matters to you, but that's part of 1 really, by their reasoning.
3: Express Regret/Repent I don't actually need this if you do the first two - I can totally understand saying "I don't regret my choice, because I still believe it's the choice I needed to make under the circumstances. I DO accept that my choice affected you adversely and I take responsibility for that. How can I make that part better for you?"

In that order.

I don't think of myself as being a hard person to apologize to, but I know I've gotten a LOT of flack over the years for not apologizing correctly to other people. Perlandria is right, a lot of this depends on sincerity in whatever form you do use.

-E-