In my childhood home telling someone you were sorry was considered a v half ass apology because it centers you in the situation & not the person you wronged. In that house we preferred “I apologize” & then a recitation of specifically what our understanding was of the wrong done.
“I’m sorry I <did x thing>” just talks about the discomfort you are feeling about knowing you fucked up. Which is not the point! I apologize is more outward facing. I stan a true apology.
As a little kid it suuuuuucked though because you had to REALLY put yourself in the position of whoever was mad at you to understand the cost of your actions. But I bet that’s part of why I’m really emotionally intelligent - that expectation of understanding others’ feelings.
It also makes it much harder to hurt others because you’ve learned how to see the harm you can cause, so you can’t just do shit and not care or think about how your actions cause ripples.
No offense to men but imagine if they were taught from birth to have to apologize and not just say sorry. Imagine if they were raised to understand and care about other people’s experiences. Lol!
One of the main sources of frustration about dating men is that they seem to have zero interest or understanding of the way their actions impact us. They’re in such emotional survival mode 24/7, like bugs, just doing shit, and scuttling away.
Like they do this thing where they’re pumped on an early date and talk about stuff we’ll do together, or profess how much they like us, but then ghost. Rather than NOT SAYING ESCALATING SHIT they just do or say whatever the fuck they want and then bounce when they get scared.
Women absolutely do NOT have the luxury of getting enthusiastic bc that scares men so much&makes them certain you’re trying to marry them, but they def are allowed to fucking Go For It impulsively then regret it & disappear, bc they lack the foresight requires to slow their roll.
Obviously everyone is capable of doing a terrible job of owning it when they fuck up and cause harm. I’ve known a lot of women who give v bad, begrudging sorrys. But because our baseline expectation as ppl raised female is to care abt others’ feelings we’re generally way better
And there’s a specific carelessness abt others’ feelings that can be extremely specific to men, where they’re literally just doing&saying whatever the fuck occurs to them, whereas we’re constantly having to manage our enthusiasm & liking levels so we don’t startle skittish dudes
It means I’m just always choking on my feelings. I’m always saturated in liking feelings for dudes that I likely will never be allowed to express because we won’t last long enough for me to have space or permission to like them that much. They’ll definitely bail long before that.
And, to be clear, I’m 40. I’m divorced, I’m poly, I literally couldn’t be less dependent on a dude. They’re not responding to me actually expecting anything of them aside from the bare minimum of Be A Normal Person. They’re freaking because of a shadow puppet drama in their heads
Their emotional intelligence muscles are so weak and underdeveloped that they’ll spend the rest of their lives in a figurative exhausted, panting heap from the strain of some girl they dated in college maybe wanting to marry them.
I’ve met precious few men who know how to just like me a lot, and let me like them, and not immediately cast me in the roll of a wedding crazed cartoon character trying to lock them down forever. Bitch. I’m trying to see a movie with you sometimes and have lots of sex. Calm down.
Then the added insult to injury is that in their mental retelling of the story to themselves they’ll think they left because we were needy, or things were moving too fast, when they left because we were believing what they said but later regretting saying!
Here are habits I’ve adopted in response to dating men:
1) Believe nothing they say, but believe their actions.
2) Assume every time I see them/talk to them is the last time I’ll be in contact w/them.
3) Plan a full life for myself that doesn’t center or even include a dude.
1) Believe nothing they say, but believe their actions.
2) Assume every time I see them/talk to them is the last time I’ll be in contact w/them.
3) Plan a full life for myself that doesn’t center or even include a dude.
