Those Least Likely to Apologize

            There’s an episode of “Seinfeld” in which an associate of the gang is going through the AA program. This man has been struggling with alcoholism and dealing with the loss of his job, among other things. George, typical of him, doesn’t take this into account. Instead he looks forward to getting an apology from him since one of the AA steps is to apologize for everything one has ever done wrong. To put things into perspective, George wants an apology for this man not lending him a cashmere sweater years beforehand. When this man fails to give an apology, George goes to extreme measures to get one, even confronting this man’s sponsor.

            Overall apologizes can be a good thing. They can help make a person acknowledge their mistakes, make the one they’re apologizing feel better, and help both move on. Hopefully the one making the apology will also make a sincere effort to do better in the future. But it seems to me that the ones we most desire to hear a sincere apology from are the same people who are the least likely or willing to actually give an apology.

            A couple of real-life examples really stand out in my mind. The first one that I’m going to mention is that of a man I saw on the bus in Bellevue, Washington (I typically took the bus when I lived in the state of Washington). In the fall or winter of last year, I saw a white middle-aged man come aboard the bus with a black woman with only one arm (perhaps his wife, or just a friend of his, I’m not sure). They both walk to the back of the bus, where at the time a group of Asian friends were talking to one another (I believe they were speaking Korean, but I’m not 100% sure). And the man walking onboard the bus loudly exclaims, “Good God, are we going to have to listen to all of you?!”

            Ironically, everyone on the bus would soon be forced to listen to this man.

            I’m in the middle of the bus, and a couple of rows in front of me is another man, someone who appears to be in his twenties, maybe thirties. He is wearing sweatpants, and he takes them off. To be abundantly clear, he was not just sitting on the bus in his underwear. He was wearing gym shorts underneath his sweatpants, and it was kind of getting hot on the bus. In my opinion this isn’t really that much different from taking off a coat when it gets too hot.

            The same man who was yelling at the Asian friends loudly exclaims, “Good God, that’s not something you see everyday! A guy taking his pants off on the bus!” Now, maybe from his vantage point he couldn’t see that he was wearing gym shorts. I’m assuming that the bus driver knew he was wearing gym shorts instead of solely underwear thanks to the reverse bus driver mirror, because he wasn’t interfering or saying anything. But the loudmouth next to his one-armed companion kept loudly going on and on about seeing a man take off his pants on the bus, surely bugging the guy in front (and quite frankly annoying me too).

            After several minutes of this, the man who was earlier wearing sweatpants finally gets up and walks towards him near the back of the bus. By now the loudmouth can surely see that he’s wearing more than his underwear since he’s standing right before him. The man who had now walked towards him said, “I want you to apologize to me.”

            And of course the loudmouth man who apparently has nothing else better to do with his life but loudly complain and proclaim things says, “No way man! It’s not everyday you see a guy take his pants off on a bus!”

            After a little more back and forth the guy who had taken off his sweatpants screams, “You have no idea what I’ve been through today!” I could tell by the tone of his voice that he had been through something, whether it be job loss or the death of a friend or family member. Something major. A few bus stops later the man who was harassed leaves, and the loudmouth man then walks to the front of the bus to talk with the bus driver (I guess his one-armed female companion was annoyed by him at this point). And this guy continues to talk about the man who had taken off his sweatpants on the bus to the bus driver (who I assume was feeling annoyed by this) until he and his companion got off at the next transit center.

            Now, should the man who had been verbally harassed actually gone up and demanded an apology? Perhaps not. Many would argue that he should have just ignored that jerk. Maybe put in a phone or some other device to listen to music and drown out the noise with. I can totally see the impulse to demand an apology though. But even after both seeing that he was wearing more than underwear, and hearing about how he was apparently suffering on this day, the loudmouth just kept going on and on about him taking off his sweatpants. No matter what, this was a guy who was not going to voluntarily apologize for anything.

            Here’s another example that’s more personal to me, one in which I got verbally attacked by a complete stranger. For a little over a year and a half, I was renting a home with a few relatives of mine (for their privacy I won’t reveal what their names are, or how they’re related to me) in Bellevue, Washington. We were a few months away from leaving it and each beginning a new chapter in our respective lives when we were going through our stuff and trying to decide what to get rid of. One of my relatives asked me to put an ad for her white wicker furniture on Craigslist, to put it out on the front lawn for free for a few days. In case you didn’t know, this is a fairly common practice, to offer items for free and leave them for others to pick up (in fact I had seen several in our neighborhood do the same). So being the good roommate and relative that I was, I took some photos of said furniture, placed it out on the lawn near the street, and made an ad on Craigslist. I should probably mention that my relative and roommate at the time often worked out of town for her job, and could oftentimes be gone for days.

            The following day I had a neighbor, a stranger who had never once spoken to me and whom I didn’t even know his name, come violently banging on our door. He was a short of pudgy middle-aged guy with white hair, although he looked like he could beat someone up if he truly felt the need to do so. He started screaming at me in my face, demanding that I put away the wicker furniture, calling it an eyesore, and screaming, “That’s what you have a garage for!” Even when I tried to explain why we had it out (which we only planned to have done for a few days) as calmly as possible, he was having none of that. He then said, “Hey, I know that you’re renting this place” (he said it like renting instead of owning even for a relatively short time was a criminal offense) and demanded that I give him the names and phone numbers of our landlords; I refused, seeing no reason to give any information to this complete stranger with anger issues. He then screamed, “Fine, I’ll find out myself! And if this furniture isn’t put away you’ll find it on your porch!”

            After he threatened to place his feet on the lawn we were renting (basically trespassing), I watched him stomp back to his home across the street while punching his arms in the air. I called my roommate, explaining the situation and asking what she wanted us to do. She said to go ahead and put the furniture away. And of course, just as I was about to put it away a woman parks her car in front of out rented home and says with a smile, “Hey I saw the ad on Craigslist! Can I have some of this furniture please?” And I help her load three or four pieces of it before putting the rest back into the garage.

            I never spoke to the man across the street again, only seeing him occasionally talking on the phone in front of his house. It turns out that he was renovating it, and I would often see other people much younger than him helping with the house flipping. Shortly before my relatives and I stopped renting that house, he had sold the house across from us. Anyway, at the time he screamed at me, he had piles of wood on his driveway, and a giant machine on his lawn; personally I think our white wicker furniture looked much better than his stuff. And weeks after he screamed at me, I saw that he (or at least those he was working with) put an old doghouse and other items in front of and on his lawn, with signs that said, “Free” on them.

            Total hypocrite.

            One more thing about this man. I recognized him as a guy that I had seen at Home Depot (I used to work at the one in Redmond, Washington for a little over two years). On my last day of work before moving on to a new company, he was in the loading dock where people could get concrete (among other things) loaded into their trucks and vans. He came in and asked for help getting concrete in and of course we had to explain to him that he would have to wait his turn (it was a pretty busy day and other contractors were getting their trucks loaded as well). Instead of waiting, he moved his truck back to get the concrete himself, and ended up breaking several dozen bags of concrete (not to mention being a safety hazard to say the least). One of the other contractors as calmly as possible then said, “Dude, just wait your turn. We’re all waiting.”

            And then this man, who had a history of being a jerk to both customers and employees alike, and who would eventually scream at me about a house that he wasn’t paying rent for, screamed, “Fuck you!” at this fellow contractor.

            Anyway, while I would love for this pathetic excuse for a man to grovel at my feet and apologize to me, I really doubted that that was going to ever happen. He seemed to be one of those people who simply looked at others not as fellow human beings, but as either obstacles in his way (like me) or as someone who could do something for him (like those doing backbreaking work for him). And unfortunately, while he was an absolute ass, it’s quite likely that he’s still making good money as a contractor flipping houses.

            So anyway, my point is that it seems like the ones we most want an apology from are those that are the least likely to give one. This applies to both complete strangers and those close to us. There are unfortunately parents who are abusive, whether physically or emotionally (if not both). In all likelihood they will never attempt to repent their actions, and think, “Well I worked hard and put food on the table, so I can get away with that.” People that willingly apologize are oftentimes people with at least some level of emotional maturity, people who want to improve and wish their friends and fellow man well. I think that people who are less likely and willing to apologize are people who truly see themselves as the center of the Universe. This is one thing if you’re a small child with little to no understanding of the world around you, but is a completely different thing if you’re a fully-grown adult.

            Imagine a nuclear physicist. Imagine him spending years of his life working his way up to a PhD and coming up with new theories. Maybe he also gets married and has a few kids along the way. Perhaps he develops hobbies along the way too, such as playing an instrument (Albert Einstein played the violin while Richard Feynman played the bongos). Imagine this man winning a Noble Prize. It’s quite likely that he will be somewhat humble about it, saying, “You know, I couldn’t have done it without everyone that helped me along the way. My parents who encouraged me. My professors who saw potential in me. My beautiful wife and our kids who supported me. This Prize truly belongs to you too.”

            Now imagine a man who is in his late thirties, weighs over four hundred pounds, and lives in a basement within the same small town he grew up in. He works a low-paying, unskilled job, hasn’t even tried out a class at a community college to grow in either career or simply as a person, has no prospects as far as marrying or even dating casually, and eats an average of three bags of Doritos per day. It’s quite possible that this man will think of himself as God’s gift to humanity, and say to myself, “Man, this world is bullshit. All these people around me are just garbage people. They don’t deserve to have me in their lives.”

            The nuclear physicist is the one more likely to give a sincere apology rather than the bum. And it’s likely that the nuclear physicist will have been the one had committed less of a faux pas than the bum. Those that need to apologize the most seem to be among those who need to improve themselves the most. And they’re probably the ones that are the least likely to do so.

Note: If you like stories of danger, adventure, and more, check out my fantasy novel "The Princess of Infinite Tomorrows" at https://princessofinfinitetomorrows.blogspot.com/. It's currently online in its rough draft for free.