Apology vs Explanation

One of the major grey areas I see in communication is how, when
you have made a transgression in a conversation, you deal with
it. I'm seeing an interesting dichotomy in the other thread
between how various people do this that seems to be roughly
divisible between Explanation and Apology. I may be completely
off base, but it also seems to me that this division is *not* the
same division as the one dealing with direct or indirect
communication.

Defining my terms a bit better, the two methods I think I'm
seeing basically simplify as follows:

Explanation:
Person 1: You've just done/said/implied something I didn't
like/hurt me.
Person 2: Oh. When I said <X>, I was coming from this
direction, was trying to say <Y>, and had this impression. Can
you tell me any more specifics so I can avoid doing the same
thing in the future?

Apology:
Person 1: You've just done/said/implied something I didn't
like/hurt me.
Person 2: Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that.

I'm wondering at this point if this particular difference in
behavior/focus is closer to the heart of some of the difficulties
that people have expressed with various communication forms in
the other thread.

Does anyone else have any comments on this? Now that I've
written this down, I'm not certain where I really meant to go
with it.

--Kevin

Yes, the "explanation vs. apology" issue has been discussed here
before.

For me, an explanation is a vital part of an apology. It's not
either/or. If I just hear an apology without an explanation, it
doesn't feel like a real apology to me, because it doesn't show me
that the person understands what they did wrong, it doesn't tell me
why they did it (i.e., that their intention was a good one), and it
doesn't tell me that, or, maybe even more vitally, *how*, they
intend to avoid doing the same thing again.

Too many times, I've had people say they were sorry, hurt me again,
say they were sorry, hurt me again... Frankly, I don't much care
whether or not their internal state includes an emotion they're
calling "sorry." What I care about, what makes a real difference
to me, is whether or not they're going to hurt me again. I know
that ideally, this emotion of "sorry" is supposed to motivate not
repeating the mistake. But unfortunately, I have never found that
to be reliable. So to me, "sorry" all by itself doesn't mean much
at all.

But "I'm sorry" is also an important thing to say. So when I
apologize, I include both "I'm sorry" *and* an explanation.

-- Angi Long of House Windstalker

You're right, and I'm realizing now that I've had a chance to re-read
what I wrote that I managed to miss what I actually wanted to bring up
rather spectacularly. I'm changing the subject header as well. I
suspect at this point that I managed to scare whole bunches of people
into the hills just with the thread title.

What I wanted to highlight was that I seemed to be noticing a
dichotomy in the timing and context of how and when people offered and
expected an explanation when a boundary has been crossed, versus the
timing and context of how and when people offered and expected an
apology when a boundary has been crossed.

That's a mouthful. I may be stating the obvious here, but it seems to
me that there are a number of people in the other discussion who, upon
determining that a boundary has been crossed, immediately offer an
explanation as part and parcel of an apology. There seems to be
another group of people who, whether they expect or want an
explanation at some point, would at the very least prefer that it not
occur *right then*.

The two protocols seem to me to contain a difference in focus. I view
the explanation as dealing with the future. It provides a basis for
determining how the boundary violation will be avoided in any future
interactions. Whereas I'm seeing that some people are more concerned
with the *current* violation, and would prefer to resolve the conflict
with a retreat/lessening of intensity first, and only then concern
themselves with future violations.

Right. That seems to be much closer to what I actually wanted to talk
about. Hopefully I haven't gone and triggered a natural disaster in
the course of figuring that out.

--Kevin

As for me, I'm not going to give a flip about anyone's explanations of
why they're standing in my garden until they get Off The Damn Tomatoes.
All of the standing there and explaining is continuing to trample the
plantlife, continuing to cause damage, and continuing to fail to respect
the boundary and the work I put into the garden.

There's no fixing the tomatoes being trampled by waving a magic wand.
But getting _off_ the tomatoes and apologizing makes me more likely to
be willing to give over my annoyance. And maybe _after_ I've decided
whether or not the apology and backing off makes me willing to deal with
this person despite the damage to the tomatoes, I'd be interested in
what the other person _thought_ they were doing.

The explanation before the backing off and the 'whoops, I didn't mean to
do that' rather strongly implies to me that this person is more
interested in justifying why they trampled my tomatoes than in
rectifying the damage. I'm not going to be all that sympathetic to the
good intentions of someone who wants to explain that what they /really/
meant to do was go over /there/ and do /that/, and that should make the
fact that they're /still/ standing on my poor tomato all right.

I think that metaphor works.

- Darkhawk, whose tomatoes are yet to sprout

--
Heather Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
Sometimes I pray for silence; sometimes I pray for soul. . . .
- Meat Loaf, "I'd Do Anything For Love"

Wonderful metaphor.

Louise,
who was glad to see that all the drywall bits did eventually get
removed from off our crocuses this afternoon, but who thinks it might
happen again. Grrr.

Sure it does, once it is pointed out to the non-botanical person
that the weeds they thought they were standing in are your tomatoes.

RJ

--
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your
right to mis-attribute this quote to Voltaire. --Avram Grumer
(for more see http://public.logica.com/~stepneys/cyc/l/liberty.htm)

= [email protected] === Copyright 2001 RJ Johnson === [email protected] =

oh no. nono. that won't be enough. next the inquiring non-
botanical person will say one or more of the following:

tomatoes? what are tomatoes?

_those_ are tomatoes? aren't they a bit small?

i've never seen tomatoes like that.

nobody i know grows tomatoes like that, english speakers grow them
in raised beds.

i don't see why you would be so sensitive about tomatoes, people
have told me it's ok to walk in tomatoes.

*steps 2 cm to the left*. when admonished: how was i supposed to
know these were _also_ your tomatoes? i don't see any sign here.

how can we ever have a conversation if you care so much about your
tomatoes?

tomayto, tomahto, say, nice tits.
--
-piranha

I'm not so sure... because it seems to me that what some people
are saying is that when the thing being treaded on is a "personal
topic," then the explanation is -- or might be? -- itself a
violation of that. So how do you simultaneously get off the
subject, and give an explanation?

Also, it doesn't work very well to get off the tomatoes before
giving an explanation, if you need to give at least a partial
explanation in order to get enough information to figure out *how*
to get off the tomatoes in the first place.

Or how to get off the tomatoes without stepping in the carrots.
--
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/, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. | http://www.spy.net/~menolly/
`._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' fL| Paranoid Cynical Optimist
---------------------------------------------------------------
Even revolutionaries like chocolate chip cookies. (Doonesbury,
Dec. 22, 1970)

(you forgot a few...)

Why on earth are you growing *tomatoes* ?!

Those aren't tomatoes, those are weeds. I'm sure of it!

Tomatoes are bad for you. I'm doing you a favor.

You should have protected your tomatoes better.

Trinker
--
DO NOT SEND REPLIES DIRECTLY TO THIS E-MAIL!
[email protected] is a spamdump, and is not read.
Send mail you'd like me to read to <kat> @ <vincent-tanaka.com>
(remove the brackets, of course.)

I think I feel the opposite: that I would like to hear an
apology without an explanation, since explanations sometimes
sound like excuses. I have to also remind myself of that
and apologize without explanations or excuses myself.

Maybe at a later time when emotions aren't running as high
explanations can be offered, so that, as you pointed out,
the problem won't recurr.

"oops! I'm sorry I'm standing in the tomatoes! Show me
where to step so I'll get out of your tomato patch without
causing any more destruction." That would work a lot better
for me than:

"I'm sorry I'm standing in the tomatoes. But they just looked
like weeds to me."

Later, the two people could put a little fence around the
tomato patch so that others won't step on them.
--
"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things." -- Vice President
Dan Quayle, 11/30/88

i'm quite convinced that if people are using analogies to speak
to you Angi that it might be more helpful to you if they were to
label the different parts of the analogy as clearly as they could.

in the case of the metaphorical garden, i think what piranha means
is not what you think it means and that is causing you a lot of
confusion. from what piranha has said in zir other posts it's very
unlikely that you would find yourself in zir garden because on this
group you're not given the keys and in person piranha is quite able
to manage dealing with people around zir who might be getting close
before they get into the garden.

i'm also convinced that Darkhawk's tomatoes and piranha's garden
might overlap in some regards, but i'm also convinced that there are
bits that do not overlap at all.

and i think there are other people who have quite different ideas
about what is public and what is private and how a person might go
from being a stranger to a friend. the learning of that is the
learning of how a garden do grow for each person and sometimes the
boundary of a garden is more fractal than a straight line. (hoping
i don't need to explain fractals here)

i'm sorry you're tired Angi. people being people i'm not sure you
can avoid them going "Boom!" at times. i've had people go boom at
me just because i was in the wrong place at the wrong time. nothing
i could really do other than to keep walking by or make sure i was
walking _away_ from them. with a stranger i don't have any basic
right to determine why i've been blown up at (and in many cases i
don't care to know why in the sense that i'm not going to stand there
and and ask questions of a stranger who's just yelled at me for no
apparent reason).

i'm not sure what would work as a general rule here, but i can say
that if you stopped whatever line of questioning you were on and
simply either kept stopped or switched to decidedly neutral topics you
might avoid further trampling. maybe if you completely stopped and
said "help? i'm lost." might get a more positive response? most
strangers are unlikely to react either to silence and walking away or
if you can't get away a request for help, in an overtly hostile manner
IMO (unless you live in a real tough neighborhood and too many people
are abusive).

songbird (eating tomato worms, sitting on the fence that doesn't
exist and otherwise enjoying the rain

Yeah. Me, too.

Me, if I want an explanation, I'll bloody well ask for one.
(note: that's something of an exaggeration; I don't mind unasked-for
explanations if they don't get in the way. Determining when they might
get in the way may require some indirect communication, if you don't
want to wait for me to ask, though.)

Depending on the tone and a bunch of other nonverbal cues, how I would
react to example 1 would be anywhere from good to awful, though it's
usually better than example 2 (again, depending on tone & other cues).
"I'm not sure how" would work better for me than "show me where," for
instance.

The best response *I* have to "Get off my tomatoes!" is one that puts
the gardener's importance, as it pertains to the interaction, above the
stepper's importance. To use the dreaded "power" descriptor, I'm looking
for a response that *does not assert my own power*. A demand ("show me")
is an assertion of self-importance, however minor. An admission of
helplessness ("I'm not sure how") is, I think, more empowering to the
gardener. The gardener may or may not appreciate that, but it *might*
help and I'm not sure how it would hurt (though, usenet being what it is,
I'm sure there are cases in which it would hinder, and I'm looking
forward to hearing about them).

Either way, the second example is an assertion of the stepper's
importance -- "my perceptions. you're upset and we're going to talk about
*me* now." I don't find that an appropriate response for me to make if
I've stepped on somebody's tomatoes. It's not about *me*. It's about
zir tomatoes, and we'll focus on *that* first, and we can talk about me
and my perceptions later. I might even wait for zir to *ask* me for an
explanation. Or, if it's really important for me to make the
explanation, I wait for zir to calm down & then convey my explanation in
terms that *still* don't put my importance above that of the gardener.

sev

--
[email protected] can also be found at http://www.byz.org/~sev
"...as long as you continue to be frightfully inteligent, people
will continue to think that you're an idiot." -- Shawn Hulsebos, to Drew

for me it depends. if a stranger at k-mart stepped on my foot,
no, i don't want to hear that zie has balance problems; just a
quick "sorry" is fine.

if it's a serious matter and from a friend, yes, i _want_ to hear
an explanation, and please, right away. i don't really care to
hear a profuse apology, i want to know what in the world made you
do such a thing to me? and i want that worked out as quickly as
possible. "i apologize" is a good start, but i need to hear and
understand what happened. i don't want to hear excuses, mind
you. but explanations, definitely.

how would explanations get in the way for you? i know that it can
be hard to tell an excuse from an explanation, which _is_ why i
will always start with "i am terribly sorry, i fucked up" to make
it very clear that i know what i did was wrong, or, if i don't
actually think i did anything wrong, i will still acknowledge that
the other is hurt, and express that i am sorry about that. i am
getting better with waiting after that for the smoke to clear a
bit, and then i'll usually ask "do you want to hear what happened?
it was stupid, and i really am sorry, but i think i can see how i
got there, and possibly how i can avoid getting there again".

i am not sure i can get to the place to fix things without having
that conversation. well, i can get there, but not as well. i
might have not been aware of some landmines, and it would prolly
be real good to talk about those. (i am presuming we want to stay
friends.)

is this just a timing problem for you, and you don't want to hear
the explanations right when you are fuming, but later would be
just fine? or do you just not want to hear any?

yup, same here. i stepped over the line, i ought to get right
back out. _before_ discussing anything about the tomatoes. if it
is even appropriate to discuss something more.

yeah, i'd be much, much happier with "i am not sure how". and i'd
probably be instantly willing to do so, because it shows good
will, not self-righteous pissiness.

you know, sev, you should post more often. :-)
--
-piranha

Perhaps I just don't multitask very well in meatspace interactions --
explanations can get in the way of me dealing with my hurt (and
vice-versa; I'll be in a better place to understand the explanation once
I've made it through the initial "ow ow ow" focus).

That's part of what I think I meant with my "determining when they
might get in the way" part -- before the smoke clears is definitely "in
the way."

The former, definitely. If it's someone closer to an acquaintance, I
feel it's might even be my responsibility to start the conversation if
it hasn't happened, depending on how serious the hurt was.

*BLUSH*!
thankyou. :)

I was thinking that at this point in the metaphor it feels more like
our intrepid hypothetical wanderer has stumbled not into a garden
full of tomatoes, but a proud historian's WWII minefield exhibit.
The historian wants the person out of the exhibit because it is
valuable to the historian, the wanderer wants out, too, but doesn't
know where to step so as not to blow themselves up.

Saying "Get out" is merely noise, regardless of whose power is
getting emmed or disemmed.

Similar metaphor, except in this one, it's the stepper who's more
inconvenienced by the possible ramifications of the stepping than the
historian. I prefer the tomatoes example for that reason. I'll buy that
sometimes, it *is* the person doing the tromping around for whom the
fallout might be more of a problem, though -- and I'll also buy that it
sometimes feels that way to the person doing the stepping, separate from
the question of whether or not it's true.

After the problem is identified, yes. "Get out of my tomatoes," in the
original example, was the statement which identified the problem in the
first place, though.

Continuing to holler "get out" is counterproductive after the message
has been conveyed.

sev

"All his adult life, he'd asked why. Why God? Why meaning? Why love? Now
he realized his error. The question was not why, it was why not?" -Barker

"Separate from the question of whether or not it's true."? Gee,
that's awfully, um, big of you, sev.

And my original counterpoint was it only identifies the problem in
the speaker's mind until our intrepid wanderer understands what
tomatoes are (it is amazing the sentneces one can construct in
discussing hypotheticals <g>).

Throughout all this talk about stepping on garden plants, I've
been thinking about how I handle my literal garden beds. Any beds have a
network of paths (usually covered in pine-bark mini-nuggets) or a clear
progression of stepping-stones. There is no real "safe" place to walk in
the garden bed, but you don't have to, usually not even to weed, because
you can get virtually anywhere you want by following the paths and/or
using the stepping-stones. This includes stepping-stone "stairs" up/down
the hill, in four places.
This is very deliberate, partly because I like thick plantings but
don't want to risk stepping on things myself. Also, I like sitting down
to weed, rather than having to stand and bend over.
I wonder what the conversational equivalent of this is. I wonder
if my gardening style has anything to do with *my* conversational style.
I wonder if it's significant that my only tomatoes are in pots, where one
*can't* really step on them without a great deal of positive efforts, and
if so, what the conversational equivalent of that is.
Oh, and by the way, the fish's post made me laugh out loud.

Bernadette Bosky
--
"Christian has to die, of course.... What sort of climax can the play
have if the war ends with Cyrano, Christian, and Roxane all still alive?
What sort of relationship would develop then between these three?"

Sorry; apparently I'm not posting clearly.

I don't find it useful to rank hurts, and therefore I was attempting to
set aside the question of who has more to lose in the various posited
metaphors, though I was *trying* to address the fact that what I find
useful and what people-in-situations find important vary.

So, perhaps this is where metaphor falls down.

When I'm having a conversation, the exchange of <do something>
<objection> usually signifies that the problem was <do something>.
While this may not be a ten-page blueprint of the problem, I'm unclear
on how it's not *some* information about the problem.

Whether or not it's detailed enough to get out of the minefield/tomatoes
is also going to vary across situations, though I find that it's *far*
easier to change the subject in conversation than it is to retrace my
steps in meatspace.

Perhaps that's the problem I'm having here. How hard is it to apologise
and change the subject?

sev

I <heart> my rotating .signatures

And where you saw it as <do something><objection>, I was responding
with <do something><request for clarification before doing
something>.

Not sure I follow. Let me attach referents to my placeholders and see
if that makes where I'm confused more clear...

do something = step into tomato patch = ask a personal question ("What's
your father's favorite whisky?")
objection = "get out of my tomatoes" = identify that question as
too-personal ("I don't want to answer that question about
my father's drinking habits" is a good way, but even just
"Ow. Question hurt" does convey *some* information)

So, here, the answer I'm positing provides a clue, but not a map, to the
problem -- the problem might be about fathers, or it might be about
drinking, or it might be about whiskey. Avoiding talking about fathers,
drinking, or whiskey until the person brings it up zirself (that would
be, "Here, let me take you on a tour of my tomato patch") seems like the
safest thing to do in that case. A slightly less safe, but still
reasonable thing to do is to apologise, change the subject to something
less personal, lay down some lines of trust, and later very carefully ask
for clarification; for me, this can take a long period of getting-to-know
someone before I'm willing to take that chance (and, when I'm in the
objector's shoes, for at least some boundaries, I try to initiate that
conversation rather than waiting for the person to ask, once I feel
those lines of trust are sturdy enough; communication is a shared
responsibility, after all).

And no, there's no guarentee that when I apologise and change the
subject to something less personal that I won't *still* manage to stomp
on a different set of sensibilities. But I find that I get brownie
points for making a very obvious effort, most of the time. :)

So....to which actor and to which parts of the metaphor are you
attaching your 'do something'? Or if I'm asking the wrong question, how
about just a general, "Can you be more specific with your answer?"

sev

"Open your big eyes & take in the sunrise" (Toad the Wet Sprocket)

Thanks for the clarification! I see where I misread your
placeholders now. I was reading the <do something> as a stand in
for the garden owner saying "get off my tomatoes" and the
<objection> as being the stander-inner-of-tomatoes going something
like "Why should I move?" Similar substitution error on my
rebuttal.

[snip.]

That set of examples has made the most sense out of any of this whole
tomato patch analogy. Thanks, sev. Also, I'm realizing that, for the
most part, I already do that, it's just that, what with the avalanche of
examples and snapping and snarling, I've had a hard time seeing this put
into words that made any sense to me. I've also had a hard time voicing
my ideas on this subject in a reasonably neutral manner. The few times
I thought I had, I obviously hadn't.

Still, the fact that it has been so difficult has kept me going pretty
well on this thread. I've learned a lot, had some ideas shot down, and
had some other ideas seriously reinforced.

I think I've gotten a conscious appreciation for what has been, for the
most part, unconscious behavior (this whole tomato patch biz). I like
that. I like decoding the unconscious behavior I engage in. It helps
when I'm decoding stuff like "privilege" which is even more difficult
than unconscious behavior to me.

I've also had it reinforced that, when someone lashes out at me, it
becomes that much harder to understand them, and that much easier to
misinterpret them. When someone gives me the benefit of the doubt,
however (like trinker has, throughout this thread) I'm that much more
likely to listen real hard to what they have to say.

I'm also noticing a lot more about my reactions to the language people
are using in this threads, and the reactions that the language generates
in me. It's interesting, and potentially useful.

--
It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may
kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth
purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange
things which men cannot see. - H. P. Lovecraft, The Cats of Ulthar

You can't. Literally and physically: you have to say one thing at
a time. In this case, first you stop discussing the personal topic,
and either say "I'm sorry" or change the subject to something you
know is safe. If all else fails, talk about the weather.

If we're in a tomato patch, "I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to get
back out of here" should work. In conversation, we can always
teleport out: it may have taken two steps, or 22, to get to the
sensitive subject, but you can get somewhere harmless in one,
by not looking for a segue. If you're on sensitive ground, you're
better off not making a connection: "by the way, I really love
that blouse" or "did I tell you I have a new recipe for pumpkin
pie?" works better if you don't try to connect it to the sensitive
topic.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
[email protected] | http://www.redbird.org
The statement "I feel more passionately about this than you
do" may be a fact, but it is not an argument." --Molly Ivins

With a *stranger*, I agree. But, as I've said repeatedly, I'm
not talking about strangers here. I'm talking about casual
friends, acquaintances, and people well on the way to being such.
Sometimes, people even closer than that.

I'm not sure you understand that the problem is that I have no idea
what "decidedly neutral topics" *are* for any given person. Given
that *any* topic can turn out to be personal to them. And if
somebody blows up, or it otherwise suddenly comes to my attention
that something I've been saying or doing has been crossing their
personal boundaries somehow, then I'm immediately going to worry
that anything *else* I do might do the same. Including things I've
already done that *seemed* okay with them in the past. Especially
since the reason they're blowing up is probably because I've just
crossed a boundary for the umpteenth time, so falling back on
something I *thought* was safe before may very well amount to
crossing a boundary for the umpteen-plus-oneth time.

It seems like that's exactly what's getting a negative response
here. I thought the message was that I don't have any right to ask
them for help, and that asking about the specifics of where the
line is ("I'm lost") is likely to amount to *another* boundary
violation.

--
please use my reply-to address, not my from address

For me, acting submissive like that triggers some big, squicky
buttons. Is it really necessary to do something so uncomfortable -
- to cross my own boundaries, big time -- in order to make an
apology go right? Can't apologies be power-equal? (Equipotent?
I've lost the word I was looking for there.)

I don't see this as "about me." If I'm trying to explain that I
really was trying to do right by the other person, and want to do
right by them in the future, how is that "about me?" If I ask what
I can do to fix the problem ("how can I get out of your tomato
patch?"), how is that "about me?"

--

Harder than you'd think. Because I don't know what to change the
subject *to*. Nothing is safe. There could be land mines
*anywhere*. If I've already set one of them off, isn't it
understandable that I'd be instantly quite leery of others?

Another point is that changing the subject requires thinking of
another subject and then thinking of something to say on that
subject. Which all takes time. I can sometimes be a very slow
thinker, in a conversation. I can't just grab a new subject out of
thin air in a split second. So my apology would be just hanging
there. Awkward pause. Waiting for someone to say something. Not
comfortable for anyone.

But how do you know the problem isn't about favorites, or questions
in general, or families, or earthquakes (because an earthquake
broke all their father's whiskey bottles once, traumatically), or
your voice, or your tone or your volume while you asked, or the way
you were standing while you asked, or your expression while you
asked, or your breath which your question pushed into their
airspace, or your talking to them at all, or liquid, or food, or
glass, or ice, or anything else which might be obviously connected
to them, but not so obvious to you?

This is what's been the point all along (as far as I can see):
There is no way to tell which subject might be less personal for
that person. If you couldn't tell in the first place that that
subject was going to be personal, how can you tell what other
subjects might be?

I make efforts that are obvious to me. To the other person, it
seems my efforts can look like I've deliberately stomped on the
very same boundary again (be it asking a personal question or any
other kind of boundary crossing).

I do something which crosses a boundary. The person tells me so.
Apology, and I do something which to me seems *totally unrelated*
and furthermore as safe and unoffensive as possible. But it turns
out that to the other person's mind, the second action is very
clearly and obviously a violation of the same boundary. How do I
prevent this? Especially if it's not even okay to ask what,
exactly, the boundaries of the boundary are, when I first find out
that there's a boundary at all?

Would you feel comfortable telling casual acquaintances that you
have an impairment that isn't visible (Asperger's), and that it
affects you in such-and-such-a-way? I'm thinking about the conversations
we've had here about another invisible impairment (hearing difficulties)
and how Aahz, Elise and others talk to people about it. As I wrote
in another post, simply knowing that you have this problem
makes it more likely that I won't be offended by things you say,
if I am lucky enough to meet you at some point.

Elissa, hoping that she said all this in an unoffensive way
--
http://members.aol.com/elissaann
"Man's work is nothing but a slow trek to rediscover through
the detours of art those one or two images in whose presence
his heart first opened" -- Albert Camus

Wow. How incredibly frustrating for you. I think that's what my mother
went through with me from age 12 to somewhere in my 30's.
She never knew what she would say that would offend me, or
why it would offend me, and she decided that it would be better
not to ask any questions at all. I never knew how to explain
what was wrong with her questions, either.

Back to the example above:
My immediate impulse was that the offensive topic was probably
one of the most obvious ones: fathers, drinking, or whiskey.
Do you see those as the most obvious ones? Do you see the
other things you mentioned as in a different class?

I usually assume that the offensive topic is something obvious,
and I've had good luck with that. Sometimes I'm wrong. But the
other person in the conversation has a responsibility, too (as
I have written here before). If there's something really subtle
or unobvious that is bothering that person, it has probably
come up over and over again in that person's conversations,
and zie probably knows that it will continue to come up. Zie
can choose to steer the conversation in a different way, too.
It's not all up to you. If it were all up to you, it wouldn't
be a conversation. I don't know what I'd call it (an interview?),
but I wouldn't call it a conversation.

I can't. If I can't find a single topic that is not offensive to the
other person, then maybe zie is not a good person for me to have a
conversation with. But if I decide to continue, I do have some
standard things I do when changing the subject.

I could ask the other person in the conversation to pick the
next topic. Or I could make a comment about something
I can see (a picture on the wall, the music, a beautiful
piece of jewelry zie is wearing, the cool way zie tied zir scarf
[Wow! Could you show me how you did that?], the beautiful
view, the sunset, the weather, zir interesting necktie, the words
on zir T-shirt [Podunk Folk Festival! Cool! I love folk music! How
was it?]).

I'm not saying that any of these will work for you. They are
things that come to me when I'm trying to make conversation,
and I don't have any other good hooks.

I do have a trick. I always wear a very beautiful, very interesting
necklace. A lot of people will mention it, because it's there. I
have stories about it, and sometimes those stories will lead to
other people's stories. It's my own personal conversation piece.
It's a safe topic, and other people often bring it up. If someone
else is wearing an interesting piece of jewelry, that's usually
a safe topic, too. I ask about the jewelry itself. Not "who gave
it to you?" but "what are the stones?" Maybe the topic won't
go anywhere, but it's at least a safe interlude until another
subject rides up on its white horse.

Elissa

I'd hope that there's a way that you can communicate that you're putting
their boundary -- which, in this example, we're positing that you've
violated -- before your own explanation without punching those buttons.
If you can figure out how to frame a power-equal apology, more power to
you; my experience is that most people aren't that graceful.

You've got a situation where *you* have transgressed, and potentially
hurt somebody. The next step is going to be painful for *someone*.
Might it be your turn? That's why I *don't* think apologies are
necessarily something that assume equal power. This bit of thread has
been about, "I crossed somebody's boundaries and I don't know exactly how
I did that." Your next step may or may not continue to tread on that
person's boundary. I do not believe you can generate a power-equal
apology in that situation; you don't have enough information to do so.

Or perhaps you've encountered somebody you can't communicate easily
with. That happens, too. In that case, you can give up on that person,
or you can go through the admittedly painful process of figuring out how
to communicate with each other.

On a spectrum of responses, from most what I find most innocuous, to
most intrusive:
"I don't understand..." (my example -- a statement)
"How can I get out..." (a question)
"but I was..." (an explanation)
"Show me..." (the example in the post I was responding to -- a demand,
though it can be phrased as another question, too)

The demand and explanation are primarily, directly, about the speaker
(and zir desire for information, or about zir motivations,
respectively). *Indirectly*, they also communicate other
things...interest in the problem at hand, for instance. But the direct
parts of communication that are happening in those statements are about
the speaker.

The question is, in my eyes, the closest thing to "equal" here -- it's
about the speaker's desire for information, but it's information
directly related to what the other person wants, too. My experience is
that it doesn't do much in the way of smoothing the previous boundary
violation, though -- it just helps prevent future ones. While it's nice
to prevent future boundary violations, it's not always enough (though
for some people, it is...that's another one of those things I only find
out about people by trial and error.)

sev

Hm, perhaps I haven't been clear.

You can't know.
You can't ever *know*.

All you can do is make it a little more likely that you'll guess
something close to correct.

You can't. All you can do is make it a little more likely that you'll
guess something close to correct. If you're going to ask questions,
you're going to, eventually, step on something the person considers
personal.

At this point, you've got a choice: You can accept that this is
difficult, and that you'll screw it up on a regular basis -- just like
the rest of us do -- but that there are things you can do to reduce
those screw-ups. Question is, are you willing to do that work knowing
that even so, you'll still be wrong sometimes?

There is no rule-book.

sev

"Oh, I'm so inadequate-- and I love myself!" (Meg Ryan)

*squeak*

Glad to be of help.

And thanks to everybody who's participated on this thread -- it's
stimulating all sorts of neat noodling in me, and I'm now thinking about
things I don't always examine. I've learned a lot.

*nod*

For me, this behavior is, I think, less unconscious than for most
people, or at least the part where I *learned* the behavior was. I came
from the perspective of, "All people are time-bombs. Nobody's reaction
is ever at *all* predictable. What's okay today might not be okay
tomorrow,"[*] and I thought that was normal, and it never ocurred to me to
be upset about it, except to be upset with myself when I forgot and
actually, like, interacted with people. I experienced something of a
second childhood when, in my late-teens or early twenties, I had the
epiphany: normal people aren't like that (it might have been better
stated as, "normal people aren't *always* like that," but my light-bulbs
lack that kind of subtlety). So a lot of my learning about this kind of
communication happened as a semi-adult, consciously; I think a lot of
people learn about it as kids, unconsciously, instead.

sev

[*] How I got to this perspective is related to me having an alcoholic
as a loved one, when I was a child.

--
[email protected], studly femme & amiable kook
"Unix is the answer, but only if you phrase the question very carefully."
*** http://www.byz.org/~sev ***

I think this is a *really* good point, especially when talking
about people you know rather than strangers or people you're just coming
to know. Most of the people I deal with know if they have unusual
sensitivities; they may be just as likely to blow up, but will say, "Well,
that's a sore point for me" afterwards. In such cases we both apologize
and then just move on.

heather e blair wrote:

I'm racing through posts desparately trying to catch up... but has
anyone noticed the tortured path to getting the crew from the
US 'spy' plane out of China, all centering on official letters
significant
enough to 'pass' but vague enough that both sides can claim
some sort of 'victory' and how neither to each side's constitutants
are apologizing...

And I'm sure the paths are very clear to most people. However,
there are people they're not clear to. I was thinking about this
yesterday as I watched my 3.5-year-old hunt Easter eggs in my
parents' yard. She kept tromping right off the clear paths into
the flower beds. After it had been brought to her attention a few
times that she should be walking on the paths and not in the flower
beds, then she started noticing on her own after a moment or two
when she was standing among flowers rather than on a path. But she
wasn't good at noticing *before* she left the path, only after she
was already a few steps off the path. And she wasn't very good at
telling when she had walked back far enough to be back on the path.
Sometimes she would retrace her steps to the point where she was no
longer completely surrounded by flowers, but she was still in the
flower bed, and stop there.

And it was confusing to her when she would step on the greens of a
plant and get told that she was stepping on a "flower," when she
knows it's okay to step on grass, clover growing in the grass (with
its flowers), and dandelions (also with flowers) growing in the
grass.

I tend to run into the problem of "How do I say 'I apologize' without
'I'?". I told Harry yesterday that I was tremendously sorry that he had
to deal with my imperfectness (which is highly manifest just now) on top
of everything else he has on his plate (which is a lot), and he said
"Hold on, this looks like it's about to turn into a Rose conversation
and I can't handle talking about you right now". I was left feeling
pretty helpless--how can I communicate "I'm sorry" or "I feel really bad
about this", especially when I'm the cause of something going wrong (as
I was, in a fairly major way), without talking about my own actions and
state of being that led to things going wrong?

(Background: I basically went way off the deep end on Tuesday the 10th;
a nervous breakdown is a reasonable thing to call it. Harry had surgery
on Thursday that ended up not going as planned. I had thought it was
scheduled for Friday, so I called on Saturday, when I was back in New
York, to see how he was. He was _very_ upset, understandably, that I
hadn't called on Friday. We worked it out--mostly because as soon as he
said "A call or a note would have been nice" I apologized profusely
through my jetlagged haze, even before I knew I'd gotten the dates
wrong, and I think that's about the best thing I could have done--but I
still felt and feel awful, both intrinsically and because I let my own
damaged-ness get in the way of being there for someone who needed me.)

It seemed appropriate to apologize for what I did, and for letting my
mental state overcome me to such an extent, and to express my regret
that on top of recovering physically he had had to wonder why I hadn't
called or emailed him, and be emotionally hurt on top of the physical
hurt. To me that seems much more about him than about me. Any comments
here one way or the other?

--Rose

--
I want to do my own mending.
Why? { http://i.am/rwp * [email protected] }
Because, she said, I want to.
--Judith Tarr, _The Golden Horn_

> RJ <[email protected]> wrote in
> <[email protected]>:
> > On Mon, 9 Apr 2001, Heather Anne Nicoll wrote:
> >
> [ couth and uncouth in the tomato patch ]

> > Sure it does, once it is pointed out to the non-botanical person
> > that the weeds they thought they were standing in are your tomatoes.
>
> oh no. nono. that won't be enough. next the inquiring non-
> botanical person will say one or more of the following:

<snip entertaining list>

Translating this into Rose-speak from metaphor-speak, I find myself
increasingly glad that I have somehow, somewhere, learned to a)
recognize the phrase "Hey you! Get off my tomatoes!" as being something
to pay attention to, b) step back as carefully as possible apologizing
the whole way, and c) wait for a request for an explanation before
giving one (though I'm not as good at this, but I'm working on it). I
may _think_ a lot about "Why the hell do you care, they're only tomatoes
and obviously I wouldn't be standing there if I didn't have a reason"
but I've also managed to figure out that my reason may not matter very
much to the tomato-grower, and sort my priorities accordingly.

Since this has probably just managed to salvage two of the most
important relationships in my life after a week of major fuckuppage,
it's really good to know that I didn't say anything remotely like what
was on that list of responses until much backing off and apologizing had
been accomplished. Thanks for the unintended but much-needed self-esteem
booster.

[snip details]

Of course I don't know Harry, but I'm guessing that the problem lies
in what you were apologizing *for.* Given that no one is perfect and
that no one ought to be expected to be perfect, if someone apologized
to me by saying they were sorry I had to deal with their
imperfectness, depending on their tone of voice I would interpret it
as (a) a huffy accusation that I was unfairly expecting perfection,
which would prompt me to be defensive, or (b) self-denigration based
in the other person's impossibly high expectations of zirself, which
would prompt me to be soothing and reassuring.

I'm assuming you used tone of voice (b), and Harry felt called upon to
reassure you that you didn't have to be perfect, but stopped himself
because he was afraid that it would sidetrack into a conversation
about you feeling down on yourself - when he wasn't finished being
hurt, and didn't want to shift attention to *your* hurts yet.

To avoid this kind of problem, you might try staying away from
generalized or character-based statements about yourself, when you
apologize, and stick to statements about the other person, and about
the situation. So (and I'm exaggerating here to make the point) you
wouldn't want to say "how could I do this to you? I'm the most
horrible partner in the world!!" Instead you would want to say
something like, "How terrible for you to go through surgery and
everything and then not even feel as though you had my support. That's
awful. I'm really sorry. I can't believe I got the dates wrong."

Of course, this is just speculation on my part. Does it seem at all
useful?

Rivka
--
Rivka is [email protected] and a resident in clinical health psychology.
We shall have a yurt of barbaric splendor, with heads of
misunderstandings and miscommunications hanging over the fireplace and
their furry skins spread out on the floor. - Ben Okopnik

[email protected] (one guileless rose) wrote in<1eryg21.1rhn1781yx74lcN%[email protected]>:

*nod*. yeah, i've been there. i mean, in harry's place, or what
feels to me like harry's place.

i've also done the "self-deprecation" thing, though i don't do it
quite like that, and i don't really consider what i do self-
deprecation, but it can easily look that way to others, and i'm
working on that.

stop after "i am really sorry". don't go into what "terrible"
character traits of yourself caused this to happen. that does
make me feel like it draw the conversation instantly to you, cause
now i get to reassure you that you aren't a terrible person, when
really, at this moment? i don't want to take care of you cause i
am hurting myself and need to take care of myself. and i'll be
resentful that, after causing me hurt, you're shoveling even more
stuff on top of that, and it's all about you.

hm. well. i think a bit of good will might go a long way here.
if i had surgery and a beloved didn't call, i'd see two main
avenues that are likely: there was some misunderstanding, or
something bad happened to zir.

the latter will worry me. the former, well, shit just happens.
not like i've never misunderstood something. i am determined not
to sweat this, and i can highly recommend the attitude; it has
made my relationships vastly more pleasant.

is there some chance that the two of you might learn to accept it
at face value that you care about each other? you seem to both be
tearing at each other's good graces because you're insecure about
your own lovability. well, that seems to be true for you, i am
not at all tuned to what is behind harry not just presuming it was
a silly misunderstanding.

stop insulting his good taste in partners, will ya? :-)

it would be about him if you said it like that. but you didn't.
you did the "oh, i am so terrible" bit instead. which is about
you.
--
-piranha

The following is *pure* datapointing... I definitely don't want to give
the impression that there's some right way to do this, and I'm responding
to your question of "how can I communicate..." as a direct question. If
that isn't what would be helpful to you right now, please feel free to
skip over this....

For me, particularly in a situation like you described (and I snipped)
from your message, I would have been entirely content with the "I'm sorry"
or the "I feel really bad about this"; that's an apology, and were I
looking for an apology that would be entirely sufficient.

When people go on beyond that, I both assume that that's the start of
trying to work to resolve that problem for the future (which I may or may
not be in the right state of mind to do *right then* but will definitely
be interested in later) and assume that the conversation is moving towards
constructive. What bothers me when someone says different variations of
"I'm sorry, I'm a horrible person" to me is that the "horrible person"
part really doesn't go anywhere at all towards doing anything about the
problem. I mean, obviously I don't think that if I care about that
person, so I parse it as a statement that's factually incorrect, and I
also instinctively parse it as a (very indirect) request for reassurance.

That particular type of indirect request also wanders vaguely near my
"manipulation" detectors, which is not to say at *all* that I consider it
inherently manipulative... but it's close to other things that are and
*could* be used that way. Part of the reason why it strays close is
because it has that "if you don't respond to this request that's not a
request, you'll, by inaction, be saying you agree with something horrible
about me and therefore couldn't possibly care for me" characteristic that
can also be found in some types of passive aggression.

(As an aside, some phrasings like this, for me, parse as very *difficult*
requests for reassurance, since they hit me at a very high emotional
impact level and therefore becomes a *major* interrupt. A loved one
saying that they feel like a worthless human being, for example, strikes
me as Very Wrong, and I have difficulty not turning that into a "drop
everything and help" request. If it's then *not* really a "drop
everything and help" request, I can easily feel a bit resentful. Sort of
a "crying wolf" thing. I'm working on adjusting my interpretation there,
since I know people often don't intend the interrupt level to be that
high, but it feels utterly *wrong* to not somehow do *something* to
immediately refute those sorts of claims.)

It just occurred to me in writing this that I may be able to express one
of the principles of the sorts of communication that work for me, namely
to avoid any communication patterns where a *lack* of communication is
seen as saying something bad. It's just too easy for me, given some
quirks of my personality, to end up not communicating for a while, and if
a lack of communication is read as saying something bad, I can get myself
into trouble way too easily. There are, of course, some types of
communication that *need* a prompt response, and part of how I try to
avoid those communication patterns is making sure to reply to the
communication that needs a reply before anything can be read into my not
replying.

--
Russ Allbery ([email protected]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Which is why I think it's important in e-mail to send immediate acks for
"important but not urgent" messages.
--
--- Aahz <*> (Copyright 2001 by [email protected])

Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het Pythonista http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

"If we had some ham, we could have ham & eggs, if we had some eggs." --RH

well hey, tell them up front what you're like and then hope they'll
cut you the slack you need to get over temporary hurdles.

*shrug* so what Angi? is it the end of the earth if a person
gets peeved once every once in a while? if they know you well
enough they'll know what you are like and things you do and don't
get easily. i know some days it can be impossible to deal with
some people and not get exasperated, but i think most people if
they do decide to be your friend will make an effort to work out
these kinds of things.

i think there's some other things you might be able to do
in how you speak when you're in a situation not of your liking
but since i've never met you in person i can't say for sure.

i don't know how someone can hear that and take an accusatory tone
from it or a defensive tone and if you said it neutral enough i think
you'd probably have a much higher chance of extricating yourself without
further falling into defensive and absolutist language that looks like
more attacks to the other side.

i've used "um, i seem to have gone astray here" to reasonable effect
and i think that's much better than assuming i've done something wrong
(sometimes it's not something i've done at all). if someone doesn't
want to tell me i've done something wrong then i'm happy in just
ignoring it and getting on with whatever, even if that whatever is
several moments of silence until something else happens or a new
topic comes up. listening doesn't hurt most the time and it doesn't
seem to cross boundaries as much.

songbird *peep*

Most of it was very pleasant indeed. It's just the last week that's been
awful. (Seeing my ailing grandfather yesterday didn't help.)

Oh, it has! He's been _extremely_ understanding. It's not a matter of
forgiveness--what's done is done, and we just sort of have to deal with
it having happened that way--but I told him where I was coming from and
he told me where he was coming from and, all gods forbid, should there
ever be a situation like this again I will have the memory of him saying
"Take a chance on hearing 'Why are you calling at this time of night?'
and call" and I will call.

I think part of it is that I figured they were getting along just fine
without me and didn't need me interrupting anything or waking him up
when he needed rest. When I mentioned this he gave me a look that called
me several kinds of idiot (but was kind enough not to actually say
"Rose, you're being an idiot" since it was pretty clear I knew I was).
That was very useful too. It'll still take me a long, long time to get
past the idea that everyone's life would really be simpler and easier if
it didn't involve me (true) and that simplicity and easiness are worth
not having me around (apparently people don't believe this is true), but
at least I have this to remind me that sometimes I need to call a
proctologist for a head count.

He's usually like this too, and I do my best to be. That was part of
what told me that this was a Big Deal, was that he didn't say "Eh, well,
people fuck up sometimes". He's used to me fucking up. *wry smile* It
quite brought it home to me that it was really, really important to him
that I be there for him.

It was more a matter of what he felt at gut level, I think. Here all his
friends were calling and emailing to find out what happened, and he was
even getting support passed along from friends of friends, and Liam was
sending me email to tell me what had happened and I wasn't writing back
and I wasn't calling and I wasn't there. If all his other friends could
take a few minutes to check in on him, why couldn't his girlfriend?
Obviously something went very wrong somewhere on my end, and the fact
that I let something go that badly askew could have some very unpleasant
implications. He knew I'd gone wonky on Tuesday, but I called Wednesday
to say I was doing better and feeling well enough to finish my trip, so
I quite understand that me feeling well enough to tell him how I'm doing
but not feeling well enough to ask him how he's doing doesn't exactly
cut it as an excuse (and isn't what happened anyway, but it's probably
the first thing he thought of). All that's left after that is massive
technical issues with French phone lines, or something like that, and me
not caring enough to keep track of what was going on with him.

This actually made me cry. Which I need right now, so don't apologize
for it! I will do my best. And thank you.

*slow nod* All in the phrasing, I guess. I really did my best to steer
away from "I'm a horrible person", and as soon as he pointed out that I
was veering in that direction I backed off. It's just so much in the
front of my mind right now that it's very hard to keep it out of my
words.

Gee, my coming back has really raised the cheerfulness level here, huh?
At least I'm talking about communication issues. I could be hideously
depressed _and_ off-topic. *)

Yes, it does, and it's pretty much the conclusion I'd come to upon
further thinking. Thanks.

On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 12:32:55 -0400, one guileless rose wrote:

<snip>

Simpler? Easier? Perhaps.

As pleasant? Don't you DARE think so, sweetheart.

Kirsten
who has lived in a Rose-less world, and didn't enjoy it nearly as much
--
Kirsten M. Berry -- [email protected] -- K`shandra on IRC
http://www.mindspring.com/~kshandra/
"Expect the best. Expect the worst. Expect a f*cking miracle.
It's always Anything Can Happen Day." -Pamela Des Barres

Thank you. *hugs* I'm not about to remove myself from the world, or
anything like that[1], just sometimes think it would be better if I went
into my shell and didn't come out.

That's a very sweet thing to say, though given how much else has changed
in your life since we met, I can't exactly take all the credit.

--Rose

[1] I was shaving my legs yesterday and thought "Amazing how a few
strokes with a razor can improve one's mood". And then I thought how
certain people would react if I said that to them without the context.
Erk. At least _I_ trust myself not to injure myself.