‘I’m sorry I used such an abrupt tone in asking you to desist from stealing my food; it probably put you on the defensive.’
The setting most probable for such a situation would be a school environment, middle or high. The theft would not be about the food, it would be about bullying, and if the thief feels confident enough to even attempt this, it means that the victim is isolated and bereft of allies. In this context, I would expect them to laught at such a phrase, and I would expect the victim to lack the subjective perception of strength to even deliver it properly.
We should do something on bullies and how to deal with them… for the sake of our children if nothing else.
Fair. That’s not a situation where I’ve actually used the ‘overly apologetic’ approach, it was just the first thing my imagination returned when I queried for a possible example that had the feel I was looking for. I had in mind (university) student life, where theft of food would (in my experience) not generally be due to bullying so much as greed and the perpetrator would probably know they made a mistake but might get defensive when called out. Also, the wording of that example is off, because
(1) ‘stealing my food’ is relatively harsh and explicit and can feel like an accusation, hauling the perpetrator across the coals
(2) ‘probably put you on the defensive’ could also be construed as a further dig.
Better would be, ‘I’m sorry I used such an abrupt tone when talking to you about this before; I think it might have seemed like I was attacking you?’ (where ‘this’ is unambiguous due to conversational context). Raise voice at end of sentence to emphasise query. This encourages other person to make a snap decision between answering that it did and risk escalating or answer that it didn’t to foster reconciliation. Often they will go for the latter even if they did kinda feel under attack, just because they’re on the spot and don’t want to risk defecting from the reconciliation process. And if they go the former route, you should take it graciously (using your rationality training to avoid being outraged), and if appropriate even thank them for letting you know.
Actual example from my experience: Being woken up/kept awake at a somewhat unreasonable time by a housemate showering and moving around on the floor above (paper-thin ceiling) for a long time. Eventually I dragged myself upstairs in just boxer shorts (since I didn’t want to get dressed, which seemed like it would waste time and drag me further away from sleep), knocked on their door, and garbled some sort of hinty explanation that they were making a fair amount of noise. Since both of us are somewhat bodily thick males and he’s a man and didn’t know me very well at the time, I think it possibly seemed like I was using an intimidation tactic along with being terse (actually I just wasn’t conscious enough to muster a high level of politeness), and he seemed a lot more defensive than usual. The next day we swapped apologies (I apologised for being rude/seeming like I was getting on his case), which immediately set the tone for a productive discussion that made both of us more aware and considerate.
It did occur to me that I left it ambiguous as to when a situation is susceptible to calculated losing, and when (e.g. bullying, as you pointed out) apology can actually make things worse. Having clarified that by acknowledging such counterexamples exist, I can’t think of any other situations where someone might misinterpret my advice to disastrous effect; generally I think it’s either clear-cut (e.g. being bullied has a very different feel to being carelessly woken up), or at least ambiguous enough that erring on the side of ‘politeness’ is generally better. But it’s possible I’m failing to think of something or overlooking a potential example situation where it’s obvious to me but maybe not to others?
The setting most probable for such a situation would be a school environment, middle or high. The theft would not be about the food, it would be about bullying, and if the thief feels confident enough to even attempt this, it means that the victim is isolated and bereft of allies. In this context, I would expect them to laught at such a phrase, and I would expect the victim to lack the subjective perception of strength to even deliver it properly.
We should do something on bullies and how to deal with them… for the sake of our children if nothing else.
Fair. That’s not a situation where I’ve actually used the ‘overly apologetic’ approach, it was just the first thing my imagination returned when I queried for a possible example that had the feel I was looking for. I had in mind (university) student life, where theft of food would (in my experience) not generally be due to bullying so much as greed and the perpetrator would probably know they made a mistake but might get defensive when called out. Also, the wording of that example is off, because (1) ‘stealing my food’ is relatively harsh and explicit and can feel like an accusation, hauling the perpetrator across the coals (2) ‘probably put you on the defensive’ could also be construed as a further dig.
Better would be, ‘I’m sorry I used such an abrupt tone when talking to you about this before; I think it might have seemed like I was attacking you?’ (where ‘this’ is unambiguous due to conversational context). Raise voice at end of sentence to emphasise query. This encourages other person to make a snap decision between answering that it did and risk escalating or answer that it didn’t to foster reconciliation. Often they will go for the latter even if they did kinda feel under attack, just because they’re on the spot and don’t want to risk defecting from the reconciliation process. And if they go the former route, you should take it graciously (using your rationality training to avoid being outraged), and if appropriate even thank them for letting you know.
Actual example from my experience: Being woken up/kept awake at a somewhat unreasonable time by a housemate showering and moving around on the floor above (paper-thin ceiling) for a long time. Eventually I dragged myself upstairs in just boxer shorts (since I didn’t want to get dressed, which seemed like it would waste time and drag me further away from sleep), knocked on their door, and garbled some sort of hinty explanation that they were making a fair amount of noise. Since both of us are somewhat bodily thick males and he’s a man and didn’t know me very well at the time, I think it possibly seemed like I was using an intimidation tactic along with being terse (actually I just wasn’t conscious enough to muster a high level of politeness), and he seemed a lot more defensive than usual. The next day we swapped apologies (I apologised for being rude/seeming like I was getting on his case), which immediately set the tone for a productive discussion that made both of us more aware and considerate.
It did occur to me that I left it ambiguous as to when a situation is susceptible to calculated losing, and when (e.g. bullying, as you pointed out) apology can actually make things worse. Having clarified that by acknowledging such counterexamples exist, I can’t think of any other situations where someone might misinterpret my advice to disastrous effect; generally I think it’s either clear-cut (e.g. being bullied has a very different feel to being carelessly woken up), or at least ambiguous enough that erring on the side of ‘politeness’ is generally better. But it’s possible I’m failing to think of something or overlooking a potential example situation where it’s obvious to me but maybe not to others?