I’m putting this in a separate comment from my reply to Dagon, though it’s a similar thought to Dagon’s first paragraph. From the post:
If you apologise, it should be because it helps prevent or mend a rift with the other person. You should be extremely cautious about apologising because that’s what you think a nice person would do, as those are precisely the situations where you are likely to end up apologising with no benefit to anyone.
I don’t think there are many scenarios where an apology wouldn’t help mend a rift with someone. Unless maybe you mean giving multiple apologies for the same action? To me, a first apology would serve a person very well in 99% of cases. (I can think of maybe one case from my personal life where I wouldn’t be interested in an apology.) Of course, other people might be different.
Also, consider the balance of outcomes. An unnecessary apology is an inconvenience to me; if someone has sinned against me so badly that an apology doesn’t do anything, the difference between an additional inconvenience and no additional inconvenience is nothing. But if I consider an apology necessary, the difference between making it and skipping is big, and sometimes it’s huge. So, while I agree with the shape of what you’re saying (“some apologies are worse than nothing”) I wouldn’t advise anyone to be “extremely cautions about apologizing”. Quite the contrary, I’d advise extreme caution about not apologizing—that needs to be saved for when you’re sure the situation is unsalvageable.
“You should be extremely cautious about apologising because that’s what you think a nice person would do”—I edited in a “when it’s” to make it clearer. I only suggesting being careful about apologising based on a particular motivation.
I’m putting this in a separate comment from my reply to Dagon, though it’s a similar thought to Dagon’s first paragraph. From the post:
I don’t think there are many scenarios where an apology wouldn’t help mend a rift with someone. Unless maybe you mean giving multiple apologies for the same action? To me, a first apology would serve a person very well in 99% of cases. (I can think of maybe one case from my personal life where I wouldn’t be interested in an apology.) Of course, other people might be different.
Also, consider the balance of outcomes. An unnecessary apology is an inconvenience to me; if someone has sinned against me so badly that an apology doesn’t do anything, the difference between an additional inconvenience and no additional inconvenience is nothing. But if I consider an apology necessary, the difference between making it and skipping is big, and sometimes it’s huge. So, while I agree with the shape of what you’re saying (“some apologies are worse than nothing”) I wouldn’t advise anyone to be “extremely cautions about apologizing”. Quite the contrary, I’d advise extreme caution about not apologizing—that needs to be saved for when you’re sure the situation is unsalvageable.
“You should be extremely cautious about apologising because that’s what you think a nice person would do”—I edited in a “when it’s” to make it clearer. I only suggesting being careful about apologising based on a particular motivation.