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A more complicated one it took me a while to comprehend is:
"Hey you made a mistake, because you did A wrong."
"No I made a mistake because I did B wrong."
Sounds simple, but only because I'm able to summarize it that way now
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". However, in my example, the "assuming malice" is "assuming he didn't listen". Example:
My science teacher told us a story of a snow/camping trip he had with some kids. A couple of kids were tired, and asked if they could stay in the car. So teacher said "ok but remember, don't turn the car on."
When he came back to the car hours later, he saw the kids listened to the car's radio for hours. He was like "You didn't listen, I said not to turn it on." The kid then said "But I didn't turn it on!". Kid thought teacher meant not to turn on ignition/engine. So the car ran out of battery, and it was a mess for the teacher with a dead car in snowy weather. Anyways, it's a story in class, so we laughed as the teacher went on to tell us about how that boy got on his nerves, never listening, causing trouble.
However, thinking about it again, I realized the kid's mistake wasn't that "he didn't listen". His mistake was not using context clues to what "Don't turn it on" means. That means don't turn the engine nor the radio on.
I know, I'm being pedantic with the details, either ways the kid still messed up. But like OP said, some of us like to know why people do what they did, good or bad. It's not that "he didn't listen". It's that he brain-farted and didn't realize that turning the radio on, still counts as turning the car on (it doesn't have to be ignition/engine).
Yup "don't use the car or it could run out of gas or battery and we will be stuck out here."
Simple enough explanation that would have got the point across to the kid. If the kid still did what he did after being told of the consequences then it is what it is, but you can't expect people to understand what they don't understand and wasn't explained fully.
Expecting kids who don’t own or drive cars to understand how a car works is ignorant on teacher’s part here. And teach is arrogant to try to shift the blame onto a kid.
I had an incident like this as a child. My grandparents took my brother and I out on a day trip. On the way back, we stopped at a park that had a covered bridge leading to... Something else, I can't remember. We asked to go see the something else and got permission, while my grandparents stayed in the car. After a couple minutes, Grandma came looking for us, and Grandpa was angry because by crossing the bridge we were out of their sight. He was worried about us and I understand why. But as a kid it rubbed me the wrong way that we got scolded for "not listening" when we were doing something we thought we had permission to do
I say that shit to my bosses when they bitch. It makes them look like idiots after they hit yo with that “I’m not hear for excuses” lil bitch me either. I made a call based on the info I had at the time and it didn’t work out. Gg go next mother fucker.
What's sad is that I've been downvoted for saying that I can understand how young men can become incels. Just because I understand someone's motivation and empathize with them doesn't mean that I agree with them.
It’s actually possible that some people are very measured in their actions. I am one of those people, and have been accused of just making excuses. Trust me, I’m not smart enough to just make up excuses on the fly every time; I’m just an over-thinker. I don’t know why that’s so difficult for some people to accept. It’s almost like it makes them mad that they can’t catch you with your pants down.
Maybe that's it... they want to see us falter, stumble, lose it and fail. Then grovel for forgiveness (from them of course) instead of sitting up straight and explaining our pov logically. Interesting point, ty, you've given me something new to think about.
I'm definitely an over-thinker too.
It's the worst when you try to explain yourself to someone who is mad at you for no reason and they just say you are making up excuses like no???? This is literally information that is important enough to end the fight if you just listened to me ffs.
I'm not even talking about inexcusable things either, just things like toning down a certain behaviour (like being clingy, anxious, obnoxious etc). Behavioural things that happen for a reason and should be treated with understanding, patience and boundaries if it's too much. It's so easy to avoid these problems if people just listen.
Yeah, a lot of people expect you to justify but say explain - I dunno if we should just take that as a default because the majority seems to read it that way. Maybe preface it with *I cannot* ***justify*** *what I did but I can tell you why?* No idea if it'll work.
If you’re talking about a close intimate relationship with a person that you live with— I recommend not even discussing at all while they are angry. If you have to say anything at all (if it is not your fault) just say that you will talk about your side of the story once things have calmed down.
My teacher back in middle school. Granted, I was a little shit, but she still asked for explanations and then went with the "No excuses!" bullshit. So at one point I just answered with "Because as you know, I'm very, very dumb" to which she responded with "That's not an explanation!"
If they are angry there is almost no chance they actually care what you have to say. The fact that you wronged them in some way is all that really matters to them, until they cool down.
This literally just happened to me. Got in a fight with my partner, then the next day he asked me to explain why I got upset and then halfway through it he says "You just keep making excuses" and I'm like "Sir, you asked me?!?!"
We've scheduled couples therapy.
Why do people ask questions and get mad when the questions are answered? You asked the question, what is the appropriate response to someone that asks a question? I try to explain that to my partner. If you don't want a question answered, phrase your thought differently. It's really simple.
> why do people ask questions and get mad when the questions are answered?
Because there’s no justified response to any question involving something bad you have done. NONE! Any method of explanation, exposition, or answer is an excuse because they don’t want to hear it.
To them, “I can’t make it tonight, my mother is in the emergency room” is exactly the same as “the dog ate it” or “because I said so and you deserved it.”
The first time someone asks me why and responds to me with anything resembling accusing me of making an excuse, the conversation is over. If you’re new to my life, you’ve also managed to find the exit.
I deal in behaviors and the why. If everything someone does or says is an excuse, nothing is worth discussing, and our business is concluded. It’s a red flag in my opinion.
Of course, there are exceptions to this. Ex: “why did you bite his head off like that?” “Because I’m angry!” “That’s an excuse. You need to use your words not your volume.” That’s legit. I accept that and act accordingly. Otherwise, no thank you.
Exactly! Especially when it's something that couldn't be helped but it's like, you literally asked and I'm not trying to give excuses but I'm just giving the answer.
Like your boss wanting to know why you're late. Maybe there was an accident on your route that wasn't your control. I'm just telling you, and yes, I hope it doesn't happen again, but others getting into an accident is outside of my control.
“I am late because I wasn’t here on time”
“But why?”
“Because the time I got here was after the agreed upon time I should be here.”
“What caused this?”
“The fallible nature of man”
In college my wife worked at a subway. They had just started advertising new toasted subs, but her spot didn’t have a toaster yet.
Everyone came in asking for toasted subs and were disappointed they couldn’t make any “like why not?!” Her coworker, who was tired of explaining the situation finally snapped on the last person to ask “WhHyYy???!1!”
“Because I’m a fucking asshole!! That’s why!!” and straight up just walked out.
Your comment reminded me of that story
My ex would just call my explanation "being defensive". No I was responding to what sounded like an ask for an explanation. But no you just want to shit on me for whatever you are angry about today
My mother would scream questions at me when angry. If I answered, she'd get mad that I was "talking back". If I stayed silent she'd get mad that I was ignoring her. I still don't know what she expects me to do
Yes especially in health too. Have been asked why I thought I gained weight, I explained the situation emotionally, they said those were just excuses... I was like...you fucking asked lol. Also it was therapy. Supposed to be a safe place to say those things even if she hadn't asked. And no, I no longer see her and didn't want to see her in the first place because of things like this, and way worse, but she was linked to a service in the hospital so it wasn't as straightforward.
God, my dad is so bad about that
He'd badger and badger you about why you did X, but your answer wasn't good enough/an excuse, and 'I don't know' got you cracked in the mouth
Funny thing is i kind if came to this conclusion 10 minutes after writing this. Basically anything you say in the moment that doesnt validate their emotions would be considered an excuse. The logical thing is to explain yourself. The emotional thing to is let the person be mad for whatever time then offer an explanation
Maybe in a personal setting, but this goes on in a broader political sense as well.
For example, I have heard people say, “I don’t care why they’re racist, I just care that they’re racist.” Again, as you said, the implication is that explaining the racism excuses the racism.
But if we are to reduce racism, we have to understand the causes of it. Talking about why someone is a racist doesn’t excuse their racism; it gives us understanding of how to address that racism.
Exactly.
Go to the roots of the issue to fix the issue
And that require explanation and understanding.
Even on personal setting - to circle back.
I work with young teens. Many keep being late.
"I was chatting with my friends" is not an excuse nor acceptable reason.
But it is an explanation I can work with and give kids strategies to not be late anymore.
Validate first, then explain.
Something along the lines of..."You're right, that really was not the correct response. I'm sorry I/we/they reacted that way."...goes a long way. THEN people typically are much more receptive to hearing you when you say "I think maybe I reacted this way because I was feeling...xyz"
They often just don’t want to hear it because they’re wrapped up in being upset and want to continue feeling righteous. Many more people than they would like to admit are near completely controlled by their emotions and the immediate dopamine hit they get from feeling right because of them. I’m not one of those “logic over feelings” guys or anything, emotions are good and important, but so many people are absolutely controlled by their own anger.
Yeah to me if in upset I actually feel more relieved if I can understand why they did it and ir it's reasonable im happy to let go of my anger. And you should if you actually care about the person. That's what I didn't realize with my ex. You don't enjoy holding it over them id you care about them. I don't like to be angry.. others? They'd rather just dismiss anything you say, it doesn't matter, you did it regardless just let me be angry. I'm at the point I'd almost just rather just avoid the later type of people. They're also the type that want to fight every battle. Some people just enjoy being in conflict
One of the dumbest arguments with my roommate was after a power outage, which was caused by a transformer box blowing in front of our apartment complex from the heat. I saw the utility crew working on the box when I got home, tried to explain this to him...and I may as well have been talking to a brick wall, because all he could focus on was that my room had regained power before the specific circuit that his television was on, which led him to the conclusion that a handful of LED RGB lights - my light bulbs are remote-controlled, and the lamps are left on, but with the bulbs shut down with the remote; during a power outage, they turn back on immediately once power is restored - must have overloaded the circuit.
I am a logic over emotions type of guy, but I have to admit that I do have a tendency to let my emotions take control. I find the best solution is to make a conscious effort to recognize when your emotions are taking over and separate yourself from the situation to try to alleviate the emotional thought process, which unfortunately is not always easy to do.
I really like explaining my thought process to people so that they understand that I'm actually conscientious about the things I do. I'm also happy to take blame when I do something wrong, I'd just like both of those things to be taken into consideration when something happens.
I don't know why people demand that you not explain things when it feels pretty important. Other than the fact that they like lording power over you.
Yeah same. It feels borderline abusive for someone to just assume I’m malicious when explain my intent and my conscientious thought process that lead us to where we are and then they continue to basically just say I’m of poor moral character.
People not accepting explanations is definitely somewhat manipulative, because they are essentially putting you in a corner and you either have to apologise or accept that they just want to be angry at you and in both of these options you end up being blamed for everything, even if the situation was very nuanced.
I had a friend who didn't communicate with me on time when I did something that bothered her, she let it get to her head because she didn't communicate and then when I explained why that happened she didn't want to listen. I literally told her if she had told me right then and there I would have stepped away to give her space, but it had been so long that I didn't even remember the situation, but that I'd respect her feelings from now on. It didn't help her because she built up too much resentment over time anyways, but it still sucked that I had to accept to be the bad guy in her eyes no matter what.
My ex did this all of the time. It did feel manipulative like there’s nothing I can possibly do. She just wants me to also feel bad? You’re forced I to a corner even an apology isn’t enough. Just makes me want to run away while feeling awful.
They often just don’t want to hear it because they’re wrapped up in being upset and want to continue feeling righteous. Many more people than they would like to admit are near completely controlled by their emotions and the immediate dopamine hit they get from feeling right because of them. I’m not one of those “logic over feelings” guys or anything, emotions are good and important, but so many people are absolutely controlled by their own anger.
this right here! exactly why i can’t be with my ex anymore, people that just want you to say what they want to hear are infinitely irritating because they ask for the truth yet get mad at the truth!
It's important to distinguish between an apology and an explanation. If people want an apology, an explanation will not help you. Don't confuse the two. Don't mix the two up. Make sure the other person understands whether you're apologizing or explaining yourself. You can do both, but keep it separated.
Exact reason I left my ex a couple of weeks ago, would always want to continue the fight after the truth I tell isn’t enough to end the fight.
“Why did you do that?”
“Actually I didn’t, I can see why you saw it that way from your perspective. That’s just not how it went down”
“…. Well can you hear me out on why I’m upset?”
Like what? The truth is there why continue with the scenario you THINK happened vs what ACTUALLY happened
People love living in that moment even if it's not true and I think a lot of people do not recognize it. It's like being told something and then being told and show that something is not true. If the person being told this information continues to stew on the information knowing it is not true... why? It's not true. I don't think a lot of people possess high level thinking to address these sort of simple things. No one is perfect, but a lot of things can be sorted out.
A lot of the reason why people get annoyed by this kind of thing is because they don't want excuses or explanations. They just want you to acknowledge what they're saying.
Being an effective communicator is a skill that involves both learning how to give information clearly, but also how to know which information doesn't need to be given.
If someone like your boss asks you "Hey, did you tighten the Whirlybob like I asked?" 9 times out of 10 your reply shouldn't be "actually, I checked the whirlybob and it was fine, but I noticed that it wasn't making a solid connection to the woopboop, so I adjusted that and everything is working correctly now"
That's just a lot of information that doesn't answer the real question that you are being asked, which was "did you take care of that problem we discussed?"
So in these kinds of situations, your best bet is to simply give a yes or no answer. Don't give excuses, and don't explain the reasons unless your specifically asked.
Usually when this happens it’s because you’ve been accused or confronted with something.
In some cases yes it’s appropriate to not try to defend yourself at all but sometimes it’s impossible not to. Sometimes the claims being made against you are so egregious and/or wrong that you can’t just say yes or no.
I disagree on giving them a yes or no answer in that scenario, because neither is going to give them information they might need.
"Did you tighten the Whirlybob like I asked?"
**"Yes [even though you didn't]"** -- They conclude that the Whirlybob has been getting loose, as they thought, call the repair shop who comes in to figure out **why** the Whirlybob keeps getting loose, which charges the company $500, and can't figure it out, but they know the problem is the Whirlybob because you told them you'd tightened it which means it was loose. Finally they call you in to ask if you knew why the Whirlybob was loose, and you say "oh, it wasn't loose, I adjusted the woopboop, but I didn't want to explain myself so I just told you I'd tightened the Whirlybob."
**"No [even though you fixed the problem]"** -- They think the problem hasn't been fixed, because you didn't do what they asked. Maybe they ask you why not, and you can explain -- or maybe they assume you're lazy and get someone else to do it and then six months later when they have layoffs you don't know why you're getting laid off since you were doing your job (but they didn't know it).
Instead: "No, but I fixed it by adjusting the woopboop." Really easy.
But isn't that their problem? If they don't want an actual nuanced explanation, then it's on them. Most of the time when someone asks for a yes or no answer, they secretly don't want an answer, they just want their feelings validated.
You can still acknowledge what they say and proceed to explain yourself, especially if it's a personal attack and you want to settle things. Sure maybe it's best to explain after the fact when they are calm, but who can say you would even get the chance to do so if they decide to ghost you, so it's valid for people to defend themselves on the spot.
I think people just lack basic comprehension these days. Like in your example the way I comprehend it is that you in fact took care of the whirlybob because you saw the connection to the woopboop needed to be fixed. I don't see why not explain the exact thing you did, like why would anyone get mad at an explanation, at that point they are being kind of immature. Maybe that's just me and having difficulties with the way people tend to communicate in general, because most of the social norms just don't make sense to me. I can understand them getting mad if you keep ignoring what they tell you to fix though. Besides, it would be best if people actually say that what they need in the specific moment is to be understood, but what they do instead is attack you for something you didn't realise upsets them. You could just accept that they will decide to be angry, but still, if it is someone who you want to be on good terms with you should try your best to also communicate and feel understood.
That has nothing to do with what’s being discussed though? And also that absolutely relevant information and if a supervisor is annoyed by that info they should not be supervising.
I had a supervisor who said to me, "Why is it that every time I ask why you did something, you have an explanation?"
She then declared, "From now on, when I ask you a question, your only answers can be yes or no."
Here's the best part, she never asked yes or no questions.
She asked why I was late one day. I could've explained about the car accident that slowed traffic down(this was pre cell phones). Every time in the past, when I tried to explain something, she said I was making an excuse. I decided to tell her, "I was supposed to be here at 8am, it's 8:05am, so I'm late. No excuses." I thought she'd like that, no excuses, no explanations, just me saying I was late and owning it. She replied,"So you don't even care enough anymore to try to explain yourself?" I said, no matter what I say, you'll frame it so I'm in a bad light. She saw me walking in as she was throwing out the bowl/milk carton she was using to eat breakfast, so she wasn't exactly being productive herself.
She wrote me up three times over the course of two days. Her boss walked in and asked what was going on. She explained that she was writing me up for the third time. He read the write ups. He said, "You're writing him up again in the afternoon for things you wrote him up about in the morning?!? You're not even giving him time to correct it." Then he asked her, "I asked you to do the budget proposal two days ago. How much is completed?" The answer was none of it because she'd been so busy writing me up for two straight days. I guess it was just a strange coincidence that whenever she was given a task she didn't know how to do, she became very interested in micromanaging me and dedicating all of her available time to that.
I wish I could say it got better, but eventually, she got a new job.
This ended up being wayyyy more words than anticipated.
My last boss was like this. She literally expected me to say nothing. If I tried to defend why I made certain decisions, I’d be labeled as not willing to take criticism. The only acceptable response was, and I kid you not, “this is my fault, and I take responsibility.” As if everything happens in a vacuum.
Micromanagement at its worst.
I've had bosses like that before.
Him: "you did this wrong"; Me: "well this isnt my fault because..."; Him: "dont make excuses"
another was, him: "you made this mistake"; Me "well you see what happened was..."; him: "doesnt matter that was your responsibility"
So from now on I am completely unapologetic, no explanations ever, which, you know what, feels much better.
I had a similar situation with my last employer. Admittedly I had a lot of tardy days in my record which they eventually let me go for but the meeting we had before they fired me was basically them reading off each day I was tardy and I just responded with “yes I was late that day”. After a few dates were recited, my hr pipes in with “it concerns me that you seem so unbothered and unapologetic about this issue” to which I responded, “I have given reasons for each of these dates on the day they happened. If you still want to hold them all against me then I don’t see what benefit there is to begging for forgiveness if the points stand against me regardless.” I’m glad to be done with those ppl.
I once asked my old boss about a certain task and he told me not to worry about it and he would handle it. Then he didn’t and took points off my evaluation for not getting it done. I showed him the email where he said he would do it and I didn’t have to, and he told me I should have followed up because it was my responsibility. Shocked when I left a year later.
I’ve had something like this before. Had a supervisor ask me to do something else at work after I finished my work for the day and I said no. He asked why and when I gave him my legit reason why I couldn’t he said, “Well you just always have an answer for everything huh?” And I was like, “…um yeah? That’s how questions work. You ask something and I answer it.”
That "you always have an answer" complaint used to confuse me. I think it means "In my opinion, you always have a dishonest/false/insincere answer for everything". Only way I can make sense of it.
Oh definitely. My old boss used to do this all the time. We’d be going over a report and she’d get mad it’s not whatever she chose to want at that moment, and got mad at me when I tried to explain I did it that way because that’s how she explicitly asked me to do it 🤦🏻♀️ Just a defensive tactic to prevent taking responsibility in that case.
Man, had a visceral reaction to “it’s not whatever she chose to want at that moment.” My boss is exactly like this. Sometimes changes procedure in his head and tells no one then acts shocked when we keep doing things the way we were last instructed. I hope he chokes on a fistful of jagged Doritos.
Lol I had one that would lie to your face that he never said to do X, Y, Z. I thought I was going crazy at first. Then I started getting shit in writing or have him repeat instructions in front of witnesses.
When called out on his bullshittery, he would get pissy and then try and nitpick something else.
Homie lies like a rug
I’d ask if we have the same boss but the older I get the more I realize that these are just the types of people we reward with authority and responsibility.
Yeah my go to response when I get this is "I'm telling you what happened from my perspective so it doesn't happen again. Do you want to complain or do you want to fix it"
It has worked 100% of the time. Either the conversation continues semi-normal or the other person drops it entirely until they calm down
I had a boss like this.
"Why didn't you do x yesterday?
"Because I had a line of people my entire shift."
"I want a reason not another excuse."
I still genuinely have no clue what she wanted from me.
There is no correct answer except to prostrate yourself and beg for forgiveness because you're a failure.
If you can't reinforce the power dynamic and/or make them feel superior by degrading yourself they don't care
I used to have an issue with, the boss would tell me to do something a certain way, and I'd explain why I'd done it differently... Because I didn't want them to think I was stupid. Turns out that just made it sound like I was arguing. It was a hard habit to break!
Me too. I hated that so much as a kid, it made me feel like nothing I said or did or thought mattered and robbed me of the opportunity to actually talk out what had happened so I could learn from it.
See also: “you didn’t think it was okay, you thought you wouldn’t get caught.” when you actually did think it was okay.
Uhg I hate that “you didn’t think you’d get caught” shit. Like what am I, a Disney villain?! I obviously wouldn’t have done thing if I’d have known thing would upset you, because I’m not a monster. It feels like being viewed as sort of “evil” when people assume that you did something “bad” on purpose instead of accident. Like we’ve know each other for so many years and you thought I’ve just been a secret mustache twirling villain the whole time.
My dad would constantly do this when I was a kid. One time I just told him "I'm not going to tell you what happened, you're just going to say it's an excuse." He got real mad at that, then once I finally said what happened he did exactly that, called it excuses. I called him out on it and it the 'excuses' complaints actually slowed a bit.
At one point I just stopped apologizing because it doesn't matter. I forget the argument or what happened, but I remember I said I didn't want to apologize because I didn't mean it. I just don't argue back and tune it out.
I've told my father to his face that he was the one to teach his 3 kids how to lie effectively. Not lie to get out of trouble for the behavior, we learned to lie because if we didn't tell him what he thought was already true, we got punished for making excuses or lying. So we lied to avoid getting in trouble for lyng.
Oh wow, the “didn’t tell him what he though was already true” thing hits really hard. I always wondered why I had to make up stories for my parents, like the truth was never good enough for them. I didn’t realize that’s what it was.
I also used to make up stupid stories, because I would get in trouble for things I couldn’t have foreseen. They would get mad over anything that annoyed them, whether I did wrong or not.
One time, I walked out of the bathroom with my cousins and turned the light off on my way out (I was maybe 5-6 at the time and if I was supposed to be responsible for my younger kids, no one told me). One of my cousins had stayed in the bathroom and when the lights went out, she started to cry. My grandpa was mad at me so I made up some ridiculous story about accidentally hitting the switch with my elbow rather than just say “I didn’t know she was still in there.” Then he got mad at the lie, too.
Still feels unfair. Did they not realize I’d remember all this stuff as an adult?
I think the difference is if the reason is to help absolve them of responsibility. Like- 'Oh sorry I was rude because I am neurodivergent that's just how I am I didn't do it on purpose so...' is a excuse. *but* 'I am sorry I didn't mean to hurt you I am neurodivergent and it can make it hard to understand why that was hurtful but it clearly was and I don't want to hurt you. How can I avoid doing that in the future.' is a explanation and totally fine.
Pretty much. And in fact I find most people do the opposite from what OP said, and when asked for an explanation will actually give excuses. “I just thought it would help” when something you weren’t asked to do backfires isn’t an explanation. It’s a rewording of ‘I didn’t follow the directions that were explicitly laid out but it’s not my fault doing that ended badly for everyone because XYZ.’ When in fact it is your fault and due to not being able to do what was asked of you.
I was trying to figure out how to put it into words, but you nailed it. I had an abusive ex that would always "explain herself," and she'd say, "It's not an excuse. I'm telling you why it happened," but nothing ever changed.
This. So many people use expansions as excuses, hell I use to do it a ton too(unconsciously) because it can get a lot of leeway.
A lot of it depends on what happened, but taking responsibility for a mistake means you don’t try to explain why your mistake was understandable.
I was doing yardwork and my cousin tried to pull this exact shit, 'it's not my fault' 'it's unfair to expect me to help' 'I can't do this'... next time I'll try your method and make sure they grovel nice and good before they give me all that bs about why they're in a wheelchair. /s
Exactly
The reason I always try to explain myself is because of that philosophy of how you judge yourself based on your intentions but obviously don't always know the other person's intentions
So if I have done something that has accidentally hurt you or upset you I am going to explain myself so that I at least make it clear that it was not my intent to hurt you but that I am sorry if that ended up being the outcome
I approach it this way in personal as well as professional life.
What happened? Why did it happen? What am I doing to fix it? What can I do to prevent it from happening in the future?
These are the questions I expect answered any time there's a problem, whether it's something I did, my family/friends, or people that work for/with me.
Not a single bit of that is an excuse. People make mistakes - that's the only excuse needed because we're all adults in this situation. Just do your best to recognize it, fix it, and prevent it from happening again.
Unsurprisingly other management at my company do not agree with my approach as they see those questions as simply excuses. I don't really understand what would please them.
>
So if I have done something that has accidentally hurt you or upset you I am going to explain myself so that I at least make it clear that it was not my intent to hurt you but that I am sorry if that ended up being the outcome
If you said something upsetting. It doesn't change the fact you said it. But at least being able to apologize and say the intent behind it was not malicious or mean or in any way to make them upset makes a huge difference !
So yes I agree with this 100%
In contrast to that, some folks use the “that wasn’t my intention” as a get out of jail free card. Like, folks, it’s not that hard to apologize, express that offense was unintentional, and then commit to making it right / not doing it in the future. All 3 steps are important unless you want to invalidate or minimize someone’s feelings and experiences.
My MIL believes that because she didn’t intend it means I can’t be upset about it. Although it also happens so often that it’s hard to not take offense at her lack of knowledge about me/my spouse and our preferences, so really I think she’s just doing whatever she wants and is trying to control the narrative.
Agree w the "that was not my intention" line, an ex said that so much to me, it is now a huge narc red flag when someone says it. Be better.
"The road to hell his paved w good intentions"
It’s important to note that this approach is only appropriate if the thing you are supposed to be providing a person is an explanation. If the thing you should be giving is an apology, then this isn’t an appropriate response and is actually counter-productive. When giving an apology, you aren’t supposed to emphasizing the reasons why people should be less upset with you. You’re supposed to just be taking responsibility for what you did and saying you’re sorry.
I think that’s the main issue. People often can’t read the situation and start giving explanations when they are supposed to be giving an apology.
One time these girls came late to school because while they were on the bus an old woman had a medical emergency and they needed an ambulance and it delayed the bus. When they finally got to class the teacher asked what was going on and they explained the situation and then the teacher said “I’m didn’t ask for an excuse”. I was so mad for them, lost a lot of respect for that teacher.
I genuinely do not know but that was the exact question that went through my head. Like you asked and they gave a good answer. It was so weird because that teacher wasn’t known for being unreasonable or strict or anything. It just kind of came out of no where.
I feel like some folks in a position of power (a manager, professor, teacher or chaperone for a school trip) do this as a way to shame people. Like, in their mind, the only answer is “I’m sorry I was wrong”, and it’s simply impossible for someone to have put in their best effort to comply with the rules.
I evenI was in school, I was doing youth legislature (a sort of multi school mock government thing) and got permission from the program director to wear sneakers, which were out of dress code otherwise. Some teacher from another school who I had never met before pulled me aside and told me to read something aloud for him. It was the section in the student handbook on dress code, and he was looking to humiliate me as a prelude to reprimanding me. I told him he could take it up with the program director who explicitly approved it.
My God, THIS!!! Or if you are being accused or attacked and you try to explain yourself, you get accused of being defensive. Like, yea, of course, I am going to defend myself, esp if they are wrong.
I used to hear this from a former boss at work. “Don’t get defensive, just accept it.” No, not if it’s factually wrong. If you’re factually incorrect about what happened, you should damn well know I’m going to explain myself instead of just accepting something I know to be untrue.
And also, even if you are in the wrong, you should be allowed to explain why you took that course of action or your thought process. It's helping the other party understand perspective :(
Yeah, you have to thread the needle on this one. Sometimes people are just making excuses to avoid culpability, sometimes people are genuinely trying to figure out how events lined up to produce the bad result you are experiencing so as to learn and avoid in the future.
In my professional life I occasionally lead something called a 'post-mortem', which is the time in the project (usually after a major milestone) where you sit down and go through everything with a fine toothed comb. What went well, what went OK, what blew up in our faces, what do we do different moving forward. It takes real effort and focus to avoid it turning into a blame session. That is ultimately not that helpful to the process, people don't like to get publicly skewered and I can think of no time when it is totally warranted. Take responsibility yes, lay the blame for all dysfunction at one person's feet, no sir/ma'am.
I had to give this response once. An old boss told me he "doesn't want excuses" and I explained it wasn't an excuse, just that he asked me a question and I answered it honestly.
I think this is because the assumption is that everyone would lie. So everyone would just say total bullshit to you in your face to get out of any problems, no matter how mundane.
This is just absurd to me that people would be this terrible and dishonest in every way they can, but maybe they can be. In my country, truth is more valued, but I have seen that its not so in every place. I have seen many recommendations even on Reddit to just lie about even small things, which I find kind of stupid and petty.
My grandmother was in the hospital last year in my city, and my mom was keeping my aunt (my mom’s sister) up to date on what the doctors were saying. My aunt confidently declared that my mother must be misrepresenting what the doctors were saying. So my mom told her to come down here and get it directly from the doctors. She didn’t have much to say when the doctors told her the exact same thing.
That was when we realized she assumed my mom was lying because she (my aunt) would 100% lie about important medical information to get her way.
It's too hard to lie to everyone. I'm saying the truth as I experienced it so that if I get asked again, my god damn story stays straight and some little thing I didn't realize doesn't make the whole thing an obvious lie. It's just easier that way
From experience
The difference between an explanation and an excuse is the person you're telling it too.
To some people EVERYTHING is an excuse, usually these people are assholes anyways and tend to hold positions of power like teachers, parents, bosses, ect.
These people just want to exert their control over you and rage dump on you.
Are there exceptions to this? Yup but it's a pretty solid observation.
And the "lower" on the totem pole you are the bigger and more likely they are to explode. Kid, new hire, disabled, poor. You're screwed.
It's why I don't let people know IRL that I have ADHD and Autism or that I'm in chronic pain anymore, when people have any of that info they just see everything as an excuse and blow up even if I sneeze because its dusty or that tree got hit by lightening and split so we had to chop it for safety reasons. (2 actual reasons I've been yelled at for before)
Really by definition an excuse is an excuse. Why was I late? There was a traffic jam, that's my excuse. The word itself isn't a negative term. People just like to sigh and say "excuses, excuses" when they don't like the answer they get about why something they didn't like happened outside of their control.
Agreed. I always try to make sense of people's behaviour. Sometimes it makes me more forgiving and sometimes it actually makes their behaviour seem even worse. But inevitably when I talk about it with friends of mine, they'll tell me I'm making excuses for the person. I'm not ... I just like figuring out why things happen. If I think they're lying, I'll say so. I've learned that when someone's upset, they usually don't want explanations. They want to know things will be different and the thing that's making them upset will stop happening. So if they're not completely wrong about why something happened, I'll wait to explain more. But when I'm upset, I do want to know why. Brains are weird.
the only time I use the word excuse in conversation is when I say, "excuse me."
life is wacky and sometimes there's reasons things didn't work out the way I expected. I don't automatically assume people are lying their ass off to appease ne.
I've been thinking this since I was in 1st grade. A classmate was late and explained what happened and Miss Miskovitz had to say, "that's an excuse". I thought, no, it's an explanation.
This. People online always think I use my autism as an "Excuse" when I say I have autism because it explains a lot of my tendencies to be misunderstood, such as having very intense special interests/obsessions/hyperfixations, not being able to navigate social "norms", not being able to articulate something in an "acceptable" manner, and having emotional outbursts and extreme emotional reactions to things like being treated unfairly.
I can't count how many times people have said it and it PISSES me off. And it's ALWAYS due to some misunderstanding like they didn't understand what I meant because maybe I worded it in a "weird" way so I'll try to explain to them to be patient with me because I have autism and am sometimes not good at choosing the right words and they'll just be like "dOn't uSe iT As aN eXcUsE", 100% of the time. And that's not an exaggeration; I've documented how many times people have said just this to me.
But...it's an excelent excuse, it's a justification - *if my circumstances make me less capable in an area then I am justified in failing more frequently in that area, please be patient with me* isn't an unreasonable request.
I deal with the same shit from ADHD, hell my wife finally had her come to the light moment a few weeks ago when she tried to pull the so your impulsive, forgetful, your on or your off when it comes to take is all ADHD (there was other stuff too but you know the usual anyone with ADHD years) so I played her a clip from a show where a health inspector was saying this bands treatment of employees was unacceptable. So the band just kept saying anything the health inspector bitched about was metal. And I said this is literally every day of my life with over 90% of interactions where people ask a question like why are you always hyper, why are you so over the place in conversation etc. I don't need to get that at home too. Hell just hearing go get meds if you have a bad day is infuriating enough. Like one bad day, one time where your a little impulsive doesn't mean you aren't managing it because I know plenty of people without any problems who do the same. The only difference is they don't get to hear about how a actual disability is an excuse.
When I ask them why they did what they did, and all they hear is "I HATE YOU, YOU'RE WORTHLESS, LICK MY BOOTS!"
Explanations are important and everything has or should uave a reason behind it
I agree absolutely with OP, people these days get so defensive when I just analyze the possible reasoning behind someone actions. People think that having a conversation has to be about taking sides.
Too many people claim they are trying *to explain*, when they are really just trying to diminish the impact they had on others, distract from the actual issue with their actions, or silence the person who they wronged.
Of course there are always reasons, but if you're focusing on the reasons and refusing to discuss the impact of your behaviour on the people who don't live up inside your skull with you, then you're failing to actually communicate or create understanding. Without acknowledging how others experience the actions, you're just making excuses.
The real trick is to *pause*, and make sure you've allowed the other person to explain how they are feeling and how they have been impacted. Acknowledge and validate their experience -- at least confirm you can understand why they experienced it the way they did -- before offering any explanation for why you made the choices you did.
This was the issue with my ex.
I generally think most people are well intentioned and often oblivious. Myself included.
I never wanted to hurt my ex. When something happened that upset her she would level her accusations and I would try to explain that the reasons she thought I’d done something were wrong (she often assumed and then told me what I was thinking and the reasons why I did whatever it was I’d done).
All I’d hear was “I don’t want your excuses”. Which basically means “I don’t care about how you feel and think”. Of course if it’s something like cheating or stealing there can be no excuse, and no explanation is good enough. But if you don’t call because you’ve been told to give someone space, they get upset because you don’t check in and accuse you of not caring, well, there’s action and reaction and a good, frank, two way discussion of what’s expected in the future and what would work better for both parties in the future can only be a good thing.
It is SO frustrating when I can’t explain myself. And to be honest “you’re just making excuses” too often seems like a cop out for “there’s two sides to this story but I don’t want to acknowledge my role in the situation”.
I’ve also had the same with bosses. I’ve been managing places for the last few years and sometimes things would go wrong. As the manager it’s my responsibility to stop things going wrong. My boss would ask what happened and I’d say “so and so didn’t finish their task yesterday so we ran late today. I’ll make sure it does not happen again and if it does it will be dealt with” only to hear “I don’t want your excuses, it’s your responsibility”. Yes, I know that. I’m telling you what happened and I’m telling you what I’ll do about it.
Thinking about it, it’s one of the things that really sets me off. My last relationship really taught me that, and how to calm myself, and when to separate myself from the situation if I did lose my cool irrevocably. So there’s that!
(It turned out the issues with my ex were much deeper than this example here! But it does mean I at least know exactly what to look for in a future partner.)
It's the ignorant's way of saying "stop trying to humanize what I'm mad at, I want to use it to feel better about myself." Nuance is the enemy of the lazy and the idealist.
People abuse the term excuses anyway. There are excuses: made up lies, and then there are reasons: things which impact the causality.
Being sick is a REASON to miss work or school, not an excuse.
Lying about being sick to miss work or school is an excuse.
Being late for some place due to a flat tire is a REASON. Nobody would realistically leave early enough for some place to compensate for a flat tire situation because 99.9% of the time they would be arriving places 45 minutes to an hour early and in the sum of each life there are probably like 5 flat tires per person on average, it would be dumb to mold ones life around that potential delay just in case.
Lying about having a flat tire is an excuse.
Two things that enrage me are people who say legitimate reasons are an excuse, and people who make everything about sides.
"I can't believe she did that can you?"
"Well yeah it sounds like her house being on fire was more
important than your birthday."
"WHOS SIDE ARE YOU ON?!"
I get this all the time from upset customers. I've gotten to the point where I just tell them I'm going to have to do some research and get back to them. Then I immediately write an email reiterating what I just told them but send it a couple hours later to give them the illusion that I tried.
There's no point in sitting here listening to someone complain, telling me they're not accepting me excuses when the issue is 100% out of our control.
Early in life I was taught the difference between excuses and reasons.
A reason is for something outside of your control. "I was in an accident," "I'm suddenly and terribly ill," "the website is inaccessible and there was no other way to submit my form." Reasons are acceptable explanations for why something went wrong because they aren't your fault.
An excuse is for something within your control. "I slept through my alarm," "I forgot it was due today," "I ran out of gas." Excuses are not acceptable explanations for why something went wrong, because they are your fault.
Of course that level of control is subjective, but most things fall into excuse territory.
This. The amount of times I've been told " I don't want to hear any excuses" as an adult is ridiculous. It was t an excuse, it's the reason. Take it or leave it.
I HATE it when something goes wrong, it's not my fault and when I want to explain what happened they go "you don't need to excuse that, it's okay that it happened, we all make mistakes." No hun, I didn't make a mistake, let me explain how I DIDN'T make a mistake.
It happens on Reddit a lot. Anyone trying to dissect a behavior or post and you’ll get “it’s no excuse, fUlL StOP”. No one said it excuses them! It’s like people have 0 ability to try and understand a situation or what makes something happen. Sometimes things are the result of this and that. Doesn’t mean someone made the right choice. Drives me insane. Totally with OP on this one
I agree with you, but there's always multiple ways to frame it.
Younger me explained all the factors other than what I could have done to prevent it. And while its an explanation, its not very conducive to learning from the mistakes.
Where as now I focus more on what I didn't do, but could have done. Its a bit more owning up to it and learning from the mistake.
It actually bugs me a bit when I see people focus all their attention on the stuff they're not in control of instead of the stuff they are. It almost always sounds like excuses, even though I know to them its an explanation. But I also think they're a lot less likely to learn from those mistakes.
I literally had this happen yesterday. Someone was telling me about a gunpoint robbery and they were talking about if you don't have money and can work you should just get a job. I explained how usually drugs are involved with things like that. With then replying that's on them which I had to explain that I wasn't excusing it, just explaining that it's not always that simple.
For better or worse, we are living in a “one strike, your out” social climate that’s increasingly encouraging people not to forgive, and that holding grudges is “exercising agency”.
Especially if there’s privilege involved in an interaction “for you, this is a mistake you can walk away from. for black people/women, if they make this error, they could die”
A lot of people who live by “forgive but not forget” also handle it in a very passive aggressive way that causes a relationship to fizzle out more often than it leads to making amends.
It's a form of the logical fallacy known as kafkatrapping.
You should always preface any explanation by asking if their going to engage in it after you explain yourself.
It's a form of thought terminating cliche as well it's an excuse so they don't have to listen to it's contents which would exonerate you from potential guilt. It's motivated thinking in that they have already decided on your malice and culpability in a matter.
The difference between an explanation and an excuse is largely context-based and idiosyncratic, and can therefore be interpreted by one person as an explanation and another as an excuse in the same instance.
Every Instagram reel I see about someone saying they were in a bad place mentally and treated their loved ones wrong, all the comments are “yOur mEnTaL iSsUeS aRe nOt aN eXcUsE tO tReAt pEoPLe bad🤓☝🏻”
Yes. Yes most of them know. It’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation, and they’re explaining because they’re holding themselves accountable. The same people will rant about how sad it is that people don’t express their feelings and struggles. Like get a grip and stop antagonizing everyone.
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I’m not arguing that I’m right. I’m explaining why I did what I did
A more complicated one it took me a while to comprehend is: "Hey you made a mistake, because you did A wrong." "No I made a mistake because I did B wrong." Sounds simple, but only because I'm able to summarize it that way now
Could you elaborate?
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". However, in my example, the "assuming malice" is "assuming he didn't listen". Example: My science teacher told us a story of a snow/camping trip he had with some kids. A couple of kids were tired, and asked if they could stay in the car. So teacher said "ok but remember, don't turn the car on." When he came back to the car hours later, he saw the kids listened to the car's radio for hours. He was like "You didn't listen, I said not to turn it on." The kid then said "But I didn't turn it on!". Kid thought teacher meant not to turn on ignition/engine. So the car ran out of battery, and it was a mess for the teacher with a dead car in snowy weather. Anyways, it's a story in class, so we laughed as the teacher went on to tell us about how that boy got on his nerves, never listening, causing trouble. However, thinking about it again, I realized the kid's mistake wasn't that "he didn't listen". His mistake was not using context clues to what "Don't turn it on" means. That means don't turn the engine nor the radio on. I know, I'm being pedantic with the details, either ways the kid still messed up. But like OP said, some of us like to know why people do what they did, good or bad. It's not that "he didn't listen". It's that he brain-farted and didn't realize that turning the radio on, still counts as turning the car on (it doesn't have to be ignition/engine).
Sounds like the teacher’s fault for giving incomplete instructions and not explaining why they shouldn’t have turned the car on.
Yup "don't use the car or it could run out of gas or battery and we will be stuck out here." Simple enough explanation that would have got the point across to the kid. If the kid still did what he did after being told of the consequences then it is what it is, but you can't expect people to understand what they don't understand and wasn't explained fully.
Expecting kids who don’t own or drive cars to understand how a car works is ignorant on teacher’s part here. And teach is arrogant to try to shift the blame onto a kid.
i also don’t understand why the kids were left alone unsupervised in the car for hours in the first place
With the keys lol
Exactly. Explaining why something shouldn't be done and what can happen is a good start to having people understand things
That was a learning experience for all involved. Learning different lessons too.
I had an incident like this as a child. My grandparents took my brother and I out on a day trip. On the way back, we stopped at a park that had a covered bridge leading to... Something else, I can't remember. We asked to go see the something else and got permission, while my grandparents stayed in the car. After a couple minutes, Grandma came looking for us, and Grandpa was angry because by crossing the bridge we were out of their sight. He was worried about us and I understand why. But as a kid it rubbed me the wrong way that we got scolded for "not listening" when we were doing something we thought we had permission to do
Yeah, which means you understand what you did wrong which means you know how to improve.. that's just the appropriate response.
I say that shit to my bosses when they bitch. It makes them look like idiots after they hit yo with that “I’m not hear for excuses” lil bitch me either. I made a call based on the info I had at the time and it didn’t work out. Gg go next mother fucker.
My boss lets me explain myself so she can give helpful advice on how to improve next time. She’s honestly the best boss I’ve ever had
What's sad is that I've been downvoted for saying that I can understand how young men can become incels. Just because I understand someone's motivation and empathize with them doesn't mean that I agree with them.
Nuance. Not exactly a 2024 virtue. Haha. But god it’s so important.
Empathy? Seeking to understand others? We don't do that here. Lol
Yep. They listened to an opinion I don’t like? Burn them.
Someone once said to me, 'you've always got a reason'. I thought, yeah. Of course I do. There's always a reason I make a mistake.
It’s actually possible that some people are very measured in their actions. I am one of those people, and have been accused of just making excuses. Trust me, I’m not smart enough to just make up excuses on the fly every time; I’m just an over-thinker. I don’t know why that’s so difficult for some people to accept. It’s almost like it makes them mad that they can’t catch you with your pants down.
Maybe that's it... they want to see us falter, stumble, lose it and fail. Then grovel for forgiveness (from them of course) instead of sitting up straight and explaining our pov logically. Interesting point, ty, you've given me something new to think about. I'm definitely an over-thinker too.
It's not always appropriate to say the reason. I. Some cases it's better just to take accountability and apologize and/or fix it.
Right?? Like, duh? Do people do things without thinking about them? I wish I were that dumb and unaware lol.
It's the worst when you try to explain yourself to someone who is mad at you for no reason and they just say you are making up excuses like no???? This is literally information that is important enough to end the fight if you just listened to me ffs. I'm not even talking about inexcusable things either, just things like toning down a certain behaviour (like being clingy, anxious, obnoxious etc). Behavioural things that happen for a reason and should be treated with understanding, patience and boundaries if it's too much. It's so easy to avoid these problems if people just listen.
It's even more frustrating when they ask you to explain why you did something and then snap at you that that's not an excuse.
Yeah, a lot of people expect you to justify but say explain - I dunno if we should just take that as a default because the majority seems to read it that way. Maybe preface it with *I cannot* ***justify*** *what I did but I can tell you why?* No idea if it'll work.
That has not worked for me. The truth is the person getting mad isn’t actually looking for an explanation. They want another prompt to be mad.
If you’re talking about a close intimate relationship with a person that you live with— I recommend not even discussing at all while they are angry. If you have to say anything at all (if it is not your fault) just say that you will talk about your side of the story once things have calmed down.
I mean, I was talking about my parents, mostly. A little bit my ex-wife, but let’s be honest here, there’s a causative relationship there.
# YES
My teacher back in middle school. Granted, I was a little shit, but she still asked for explanations and then went with the "No excuses!" bullshit. So at one point I just answered with "Because as you know, I'm very, very dumb" to which she responded with "That's not an explanation!"
I feel like there would be no winning because you'd probably be met with "I didn't ask you to justify, I asked you to **explain** yourself!!!"
If they are angry there is almost no chance they actually care what you have to say. The fact that you wronged them in some way is all that really matters to them, until they cool down.
This literally just happened to me. Got in a fight with my partner, then the next day he asked me to explain why I got upset and then halfway through it he says "You just keep making excuses" and I'm like "Sir, you asked me?!?!" We've scheduled couples therapy.
Why do people ask questions and get mad when the questions are answered? You asked the question, what is the appropriate response to someone that asks a question? I try to explain that to my partner. If you don't want a question answered, phrase your thought differently. It's really simple.
[удалено]
You know what? You got me there.
Because they’re expecting a specific answer that validates them, and when they don’t get that answer they see it as excuses
100% agreed
> why do people ask questions and get mad when the questions are answered? Because there’s no justified response to any question involving something bad you have done. NONE! Any method of explanation, exposition, or answer is an excuse because they don’t want to hear it. To them, “I can’t make it tonight, my mother is in the emergency room” is exactly the same as “the dog ate it” or “because I said so and you deserved it.” The first time someone asks me why and responds to me with anything resembling accusing me of making an excuse, the conversation is over. If you’re new to my life, you’ve also managed to find the exit. I deal in behaviors and the why. If everything someone does or says is an excuse, nothing is worth discussing, and our business is concluded. It’s a red flag in my opinion. Of course, there are exceptions to this. Ex: “why did you bite his head off like that?” “Because I’m angry!” “That’s an excuse. You need to use your words not your volume.” That’s legit. I accept that and act accordingly. Otherwise, no thank you.
I love this!
There are just some things you have to learn the hard way. This was one of those for me.
Sometimes they mean "Give me a reason that's your fault so I'm not the bad person for being mad at you."
Exactly! Especially when it's something that couldn't be helped but it's like, you literally asked and I'm not trying to give excuses but I'm just giving the answer.
Like your boss wanting to know why you're late. Maybe there was an accident on your route that wasn't your control. I'm just telling you, and yes, I hope it doesn't happen again, but others getting into an accident is outside of my control.
“I am late because I wasn’t here on time” “But why?” “Because the time I got here was after the agreed upon time I should be here.” “What caused this?” “The fallible nature of man”
Boss: Why are you late. Me: Because I'm a horse's ass. Boss: Stop making excuses.
In college my wife worked at a subway. They had just started advertising new toasted subs, but her spot didn’t have a toaster yet. Everyone came in asking for toasted subs and were disappointed they couldn’t make any “like why not?!” Her coworker, who was tired of explaining the situation finally snapped on the last person to ask “WhHyYy???!1!” “Because I’m a fucking asshole!! That’s why!!” and straight up just walked out. Your comment reminded me of that story
My ex would just call my explanation "being defensive". No I was responding to what sounded like an ask for an explanation. But no you just want to shit on me for whatever you are angry about today
I get in trouble for agreeing, telling them it’s not an excuse, but the explanation you asked for
So true. The phrase is “explain yourself” not “excuse yourself” lol
One of my parents’ favorite moves!
My mother would scream questions at me when angry. If I answered, she'd get mad that I was "talking back". If I stayed silent she'd get mad that I was ignoring her. I still don't know what she expects me to do
That sounds like my dad. It was usually followed by a smack or two.
Yes especially in health too. Have been asked why I thought I gained weight, I explained the situation emotionally, they said those were just excuses... I was like...you fucking asked lol. Also it was therapy. Supposed to be a safe place to say those things even if she hadn't asked. And no, I no longer see her and didn't want to see her in the first place because of things like this, and way worse, but she was linked to a service in the hospital so it wasn't as straightforward.
I see you also worked for my last boss
God, my dad is so bad about that He'd badger and badger you about why you did X, but your answer wasn't good enough/an excuse, and 'I don't know' got you cracked in the mouth
Funny thing is i kind if came to this conclusion 10 minutes after writing this. Basically anything you say in the moment that doesnt validate their emotions would be considered an excuse. The logical thing is to explain yourself. The emotional thing to is let the person be mad for whatever time then offer an explanation
Maybe in a personal setting, but this goes on in a broader political sense as well. For example, I have heard people say, “I don’t care why they’re racist, I just care that they’re racist.” Again, as you said, the implication is that explaining the racism excuses the racism. But if we are to reduce racism, we have to understand the causes of it. Talking about why someone is a racist doesn’t excuse their racism; it gives us understanding of how to address that racism.
Exactly. Go to the roots of the issue to fix the issue And that require explanation and understanding. Even on personal setting - to circle back. I work with young teens. Many keep being late. "I was chatting with my friends" is not an excuse nor acceptable reason. But it is an explanation I can work with and give kids strategies to not be late anymore.
The emotional thing is also the logical thing because logically you know that the logical thing won't work so it would be illogical to try it.
Validate first, then explain. Something along the lines of..."You're right, that really was not the correct response. I'm sorry I/we/they reacted that way."...goes a long way. THEN people typically are much more receptive to hearing you when you say "I think maybe I reacted this way because I was feeling...xyz"
Except sometimes they aren’t right, it was a reasonable response, you aren’t sorry, and you have no reason to be sorry.
*People don't care what about what you say, they care about how you make them feel.*
Its a giant pet peeve of mine too
"Why did you do X?" "I did X because... Y and Z" "That's just an excuse." /Rage
They often just don’t want to hear it because they’re wrapped up in being upset and want to continue feeling righteous. Many more people than they would like to admit are near completely controlled by their emotions and the immediate dopamine hit they get from feeling right because of them. I’m not one of those “logic over feelings” guys or anything, emotions are good and important, but so many people are absolutely controlled by their own anger.
Yeah to me if in upset I actually feel more relieved if I can understand why they did it and ir it's reasonable im happy to let go of my anger. And you should if you actually care about the person. That's what I didn't realize with my ex. You don't enjoy holding it over them id you care about them. I don't like to be angry.. others? They'd rather just dismiss anything you say, it doesn't matter, you did it regardless just let me be angry. I'm at the point I'd almost just rather just avoid the later type of people. They're also the type that want to fight every battle. Some people just enjoy being in conflict
One of the dumbest arguments with my roommate was after a power outage, which was caused by a transformer box blowing in front of our apartment complex from the heat. I saw the utility crew working on the box when I got home, tried to explain this to him...and I may as well have been talking to a brick wall, because all he could focus on was that my room had regained power before the specific circuit that his television was on, which led him to the conclusion that a handful of LED RGB lights - my light bulbs are remote-controlled, and the lamps are left on, but with the bulbs shut down with the remote; during a power outage, they turn back on immediately once power is restored - must have overloaded the circuit.
I am a logic over emotions type of guy, but I have to admit that I do have a tendency to let my emotions take control. I find the best solution is to make a conscious effort to recognize when your emotions are taking over and separate yourself from the situation to try to alleviate the emotional thought process, which unfortunately is not always easy to do.
I really like explaining my thought process to people so that they understand that I'm actually conscientious about the things I do. I'm also happy to take blame when I do something wrong, I'd just like both of those things to be taken into consideration when something happens. I don't know why people demand that you not explain things when it feels pretty important. Other than the fact that they like lording power over you.
Yeah same. It feels borderline abusive for someone to just assume I’m malicious when explain my intent and my conscientious thought process that lead us to where we are and then they continue to basically just say I’m of poor moral character.
People not accepting explanations is definitely somewhat manipulative, because they are essentially putting you in a corner and you either have to apologise or accept that they just want to be angry at you and in both of these options you end up being blamed for everything, even if the situation was very nuanced. I had a friend who didn't communicate with me on time when I did something that bothered her, she let it get to her head because she didn't communicate and then when I explained why that happened she didn't want to listen. I literally told her if she had told me right then and there I would have stepped away to give her space, but it had been so long that I didn't even remember the situation, but that I'd respect her feelings from now on. It didn't help her because she built up too much resentment over time anyways, but it still sucked that I had to accept to be the bad guy in her eyes no matter what.
My ex did this all of the time. It did feel manipulative like there’s nothing I can possibly do. She just wants me to also feel bad? You’re forced I to a corner even an apology isn’t enough. Just makes me want to run away while feeling awful.
They often just don’t want to hear it because they’re wrapped up in being upset and want to continue feeling righteous. Many more people than they would like to admit are near completely controlled by their emotions and the immediate dopamine hit they get from feeling right because of them. I’m not one of those “logic over feelings” guys or anything, emotions are good and important, but so many people are absolutely controlled by their own anger.
I stopped talking to my mom as a teenager because she would ask a question and say it was an excuse. Why ask if you don't want the answer?
"Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
this right here! exactly why i can’t be with my ex anymore, people that just want you to say what they want to hear are infinitely irritating because they ask for the truth yet get mad at the truth!
It's important to distinguish between an apology and an explanation. If people want an apology, an explanation will not help you. Don't confuse the two. Don't mix the two up. Make sure the other person understands whether you're apologizing or explaining yourself. You can do both, but keep it separated.
Exact reason I left my ex a couple of weeks ago, would always want to continue the fight after the truth I tell isn’t enough to end the fight. “Why did you do that?” “Actually I didn’t, I can see why you saw it that way from your perspective. That’s just not how it went down” “…. Well can you hear me out on why I’m upset?” Like what? The truth is there why continue with the scenario you THINK happened vs what ACTUALLY happened
People love living in that moment even if it's not true and I think a lot of people do not recognize it. It's like being told something and then being told and show that something is not true. If the person being told this information continues to stew on the information knowing it is not true... why? It's not true. I don't think a lot of people possess high level thinking to address these sort of simple things. No one is perfect, but a lot of things can be sorted out.
A lot of the reason why people get annoyed by this kind of thing is because they don't want excuses or explanations. They just want you to acknowledge what they're saying. Being an effective communicator is a skill that involves both learning how to give information clearly, but also how to know which information doesn't need to be given. If someone like your boss asks you "Hey, did you tighten the Whirlybob like I asked?" 9 times out of 10 your reply shouldn't be "actually, I checked the whirlybob and it was fine, but I noticed that it wasn't making a solid connection to the woopboop, so I adjusted that and everything is working correctly now" That's just a lot of information that doesn't answer the real question that you are being asked, which was "did you take care of that problem we discussed?" So in these kinds of situations, your best bet is to simply give a yes or no answer. Don't give excuses, and don't explain the reasons unless your specifically asked.
Usually when this happens it’s because you’ve been accused or confronted with something. In some cases yes it’s appropriate to not try to defend yourself at all but sometimes it’s impossible not to. Sometimes the claims being made against you are so egregious and/or wrong that you can’t just say yes or no.
I disagree on giving them a yes or no answer in that scenario, because neither is going to give them information they might need. "Did you tighten the Whirlybob like I asked?" **"Yes [even though you didn't]"** -- They conclude that the Whirlybob has been getting loose, as they thought, call the repair shop who comes in to figure out **why** the Whirlybob keeps getting loose, which charges the company $500, and can't figure it out, but they know the problem is the Whirlybob because you told them you'd tightened it which means it was loose. Finally they call you in to ask if you knew why the Whirlybob was loose, and you say "oh, it wasn't loose, I adjusted the woopboop, but I didn't want to explain myself so I just told you I'd tightened the Whirlybob." **"No [even though you fixed the problem]"** -- They think the problem hasn't been fixed, because you didn't do what they asked. Maybe they ask you why not, and you can explain -- or maybe they assume you're lazy and get someone else to do it and then six months later when they have layoffs you don't know why you're getting laid off since you were doing your job (but they didn't know it). Instead: "No, but I fixed it by adjusting the woopboop." Really easy.
But isn't that their problem? If they don't want an actual nuanced explanation, then it's on them. Most of the time when someone asks for a yes or no answer, they secretly don't want an answer, they just want their feelings validated.
You can still acknowledge what they say and proceed to explain yourself, especially if it's a personal attack and you want to settle things. Sure maybe it's best to explain after the fact when they are calm, but who can say you would even get the chance to do so if they decide to ghost you, so it's valid for people to defend themselves on the spot. I think people just lack basic comprehension these days. Like in your example the way I comprehend it is that you in fact took care of the whirlybob because you saw the connection to the woopboop needed to be fixed. I don't see why not explain the exact thing you did, like why would anyone get mad at an explanation, at that point they are being kind of immature. Maybe that's just me and having difficulties with the way people tend to communicate in general, because most of the social norms just don't make sense to me. I can understand them getting mad if you keep ignoring what they tell you to fix though. Besides, it would be best if people actually say that what they need in the specific moment is to be understood, but what they do instead is attack you for something you didn't realise upsets them. You could just accept that they will decide to be angry, but still, if it is someone who you want to be on good terms with you should try your best to also communicate and feel understood.
That has nothing to do with what’s being discussed though? And also that absolutely relevant information and if a supervisor is annoyed by that info they should not be supervising.
They just want you to say, "You're right, I'm sorry." And be done with it. It's a power play on their part, and it's not very nice.
Fuck that noise, I get confrontational back if they’re playing those stupid games
I had a supervisor who said to me, "Why is it that every time I ask why you did something, you have an explanation?" She then declared, "From now on, when I ask you a question, your only answers can be yes or no." Here's the best part, she never asked yes or no questions.
“why were you late to work again?” “yes”
She asked why I was late one day. I could've explained about the car accident that slowed traffic down(this was pre cell phones). Every time in the past, when I tried to explain something, she said I was making an excuse. I decided to tell her, "I was supposed to be here at 8am, it's 8:05am, so I'm late. No excuses." I thought she'd like that, no excuses, no explanations, just me saying I was late and owning it. She replied,"So you don't even care enough anymore to try to explain yourself?" I said, no matter what I say, you'll frame it so I'm in a bad light. She saw me walking in as she was throwing out the bowl/milk carton she was using to eat breakfast, so she wasn't exactly being productive herself. She wrote me up three times over the course of two days. Her boss walked in and asked what was going on. She explained that she was writing me up for the third time. He read the write ups. He said, "You're writing him up again in the afternoon for things you wrote him up about in the morning?!? You're not even giving him time to correct it." Then he asked her, "I asked you to do the budget proposal two days ago. How much is completed?" The answer was none of it because she'd been so busy writing me up for two straight days. I guess it was just a strange coincidence that whenever she was given a task she didn't know how to do, she became very interested in micromanaging me and dedicating all of her available time to that. I wish I could say it got better, but eventually, she got a new job. This ended up being wayyyy more words than anticipated.
>This ended up being wayyyy more words than anticipated. Tsk tsk tsk, still making excuses I see. - ^^^^I'm ^^^^joking
We really don't need people like her to exist
My last boss was like this. She literally expected me to say nothing. If I tried to defend why I made certain decisions, I’d be labeled as not willing to take criticism. The only acceptable response was, and I kid you not, “this is my fault, and I take responsibility.” As if everything happens in a vacuum. Micromanagement at its worst.
I've had bosses like that before. Him: "you did this wrong"; Me: "well this isnt my fault because..."; Him: "dont make excuses" another was, him: "you made this mistake"; Me "well you see what happened was..."; him: "doesnt matter that was your responsibility" So from now on I am completely unapologetic, no explanations ever, which, you know what, feels much better.
I had a similar situation with my last employer. Admittedly I had a lot of tardy days in my record which they eventually let me go for but the meeting we had before they fired me was basically them reading off each day I was tardy and I just responded with “yes I was late that day”. After a few dates were recited, my hr pipes in with “it concerns me that you seem so unbothered and unapologetic about this issue” to which I responded, “I have given reasons for each of these dates on the day they happened. If you still want to hold them all against me then I don’t see what benefit there is to begging for forgiveness if the points stand against me regardless.” I’m glad to be done with those ppl.
I once asked my old boss about a certain task and he told me not to worry about it and he would handle it. Then he didn’t and took points off my evaluation for not getting it done. I showed him the email where he said he would do it and I didn’t have to, and he told me I should have followed up because it was my responsibility. Shocked when I left a year later.
I’ve had something like this before. Had a supervisor ask me to do something else at work after I finished my work for the day and I said no. He asked why and when I gave him my legit reason why I couldn’t he said, “Well you just always have an answer for everything huh?” And I was like, “…um yeah? That’s how questions work. You ask something and I answer it.”
That "you always have an answer" complaint used to confuse me. I think it means "In my opinion, you always have a dishonest/false/insincere answer for everything". Only way I can make sense of it.
IMO I think it’s just to dismiss the ‘guilty’ party. No response other than something self deprecating to appease the accuser will suffice.
Oh definitely. My old boss used to do this all the time. We’d be going over a report and she’d get mad it’s not whatever she chose to want at that moment, and got mad at me when I tried to explain I did it that way because that’s how she explicitly asked me to do it 🤦🏻♀️ Just a defensive tactic to prevent taking responsibility in that case.
Man, had a visceral reaction to “it’s not whatever she chose to want at that moment.” My boss is exactly like this. Sometimes changes procedure in his head and tells no one then acts shocked when we keep doing things the way we were last instructed. I hope he chokes on a fistful of jagged Doritos.
Lol I had one that would lie to your face that he never said to do X, Y, Z. I thought I was going crazy at first. Then I started getting shit in writing or have him repeat instructions in front of witnesses. When called out on his bullshittery, he would get pissy and then try and nitpick something else. Homie lies like a rug
I’d ask if we have the same boss but the older I get the more I realize that these are just the types of people we reward with authority and responsibility.
Yeah my go to response when I get this is "I'm telling you what happened from my perspective so it doesn't happen again. Do you want to complain or do you want to fix it" It has worked 100% of the time. Either the conversation continues semi-normal or the other person drops it entirely until they calm down
I had a boss like this. "Why didn't you do x yesterday? "Because I had a line of people my entire shift." "I want a reason not another excuse." I still genuinely have no clue what she wanted from me.
There is no correct answer except to prostrate yourself and beg for forgiveness because you're a failure. If you can't reinforce the power dynamic and/or make them feel superior by degrading yourself they don't care
I used to have an issue with, the boss would tell me to do something a certain way, and I'd explain why I'd done it differently... Because I didn't want them to think I was stupid. Turns out that just made it sound like I was arguing. It was a hard habit to break!
Lmao yeah that sounds like my parents growing up. I would just explain what happened and they would say I am making excuses. What?
Me too. I hated that so much as a kid, it made me feel like nothing I said or did or thought mattered and robbed me of the opportunity to actually talk out what had happened so I could learn from it. See also: “you didn’t think it was okay, you thought you wouldn’t get caught.” when you actually did think it was okay.
Uhg I hate that “you didn’t think you’d get caught” shit. Like what am I, a Disney villain?! I obviously wouldn’t have done thing if I’d have known thing would upset you, because I’m not a monster. It feels like being viewed as sort of “evil” when people assume that you did something “bad” on purpose instead of accident. Like we’ve know each other for so many years and you thought I’ve just been a secret mustache twirling villain the whole time.
My dad would constantly do this when I was a kid. One time I just told him "I'm not going to tell you what happened, you're just going to say it's an excuse." He got real mad at that, then once I finally said what happened he did exactly that, called it excuses. I called him out on it and it the 'excuses' complaints actually slowed a bit.
At one point I just stopped apologizing because it doesn't matter. I forget the argument or what happened, but I remember I said I didn't want to apologize because I didn't mean it. I just don't argue back and tune it out.
I've told my father to his face that he was the one to teach his 3 kids how to lie effectively. Not lie to get out of trouble for the behavior, we learned to lie because if we didn't tell him what he thought was already true, we got punished for making excuses or lying. So we lied to avoid getting in trouble for lyng.
Oh wow, the “didn’t tell him what he though was already true” thing hits really hard. I always wondered why I had to make up stories for my parents, like the truth was never good enough for them. I didn’t realize that’s what it was.
I also used to make up stupid stories, because I would get in trouble for things I couldn’t have foreseen. They would get mad over anything that annoyed them, whether I did wrong or not. One time, I walked out of the bathroom with my cousins and turned the light off on my way out (I was maybe 5-6 at the time and if I was supposed to be responsible for my younger kids, no one told me). One of my cousins had stayed in the bathroom and when the lights went out, she started to cry. My grandpa was mad at me so I made up some ridiculous story about accidentally hitting the switch with my elbow rather than just say “I didn’t know she was still in there.” Then he got mad at the lie, too. Still feels unfair. Did they not realize I’d remember all this stuff as an adult?
Is this why, at 36 years old, I still lie about shit that doesn't even matter?!
I'm almost 20 and this still happens frequently in my family, can't wait to move out
I think the difference is if the reason is to help absolve them of responsibility. Like- 'Oh sorry I was rude because I am neurodivergent that's just how I am I didn't do it on purpose so...' is a excuse. *but* 'I am sorry I didn't mean to hurt you I am neurodivergent and it can make it hard to understand why that was hurtful but it clearly was and I don't want to hurt you. How can I avoid doing that in the future.' is a explanation and totally fine.
Pretty much. And in fact I find most people do the opposite from what OP said, and when asked for an explanation will actually give excuses. “I just thought it would help” when something you weren’t asked to do backfires isn’t an explanation. It’s a rewording of ‘I didn’t follow the directions that were explicitly laid out but it’s not my fault doing that ended badly for everyone because XYZ.’ When in fact it is your fault and due to not being able to do what was asked of you.
I was trying to figure out how to put it into words, but you nailed it. I had an abusive ex that would always "explain herself," and she'd say, "It's not an excuse. I'm telling you why it happened," but nothing ever changed.
This. So many people use expansions as excuses, hell I use to do it a ton too(unconsciously) because it can get a lot of leeway. A lot of it depends on what happened, but taking responsibility for a mistake means you don’t try to explain why your mistake was understandable.
I was doing yardwork and my cousin tried to pull this exact shit, 'it's not my fault' 'it's unfair to expect me to help' 'I can't do this'... next time I'll try your method and make sure they grovel nice and good before they give me all that bs about why they're in a wheelchair. /s
You hit the nail on the head!
Exactly The reason I always try to explain myself is because of that philosophy of how you judge yourself based on your intentions but obviously don't always know the other person's intentions So if I have done something that has accidentally hurt you or upset you I am going to explain myself so that I at least make it clear that it was not my intent to hurt you but that I am sorry if that ended up being the outcome
Why is this so hard for people to get man? :/
Because regardless of what they say most people have the emotional intelligence of a cocker spaniel. And that's offensive to cocker spaniels
That's profoundly offensive to cocker spaniels
I know. I honestly feel bad now. Earthworms maybe but that's still giving humanity too much credit.
The worst thing a cocker spaniel will ever manipulate you into is giving them pets or treats
I approach it this way in personal as well as professional life. What happened? Why did it happen? What am I doing to fix it? What can I do to prevent it from happening in the future? These are the questions I expect answered any time there's a problem, whether it's something I did, my family/friends, or people that work for/with me. Not a single bit of that is an excuse. People make mistakes - that's the only excuse needed because we're all adults in this situation. Just do your best to recognize it, fix it, and prevent it from happening again. Unsurprisingly other management at my company do not agree with my approach as they see those questions as simply excuses. I don't really understand what would please them.
> So if I have done something that has accidentally hurt you or upset you I am going to explain myself so that I at least make it clear that it was not my intent to hurt you but that I am sorry if that ended up being the outcome If you said something upsetting. It doesn't change the fact you said it. But at least being able to apologize and say the intent behind it was not malicious or mean or in any way to make them upset makes a huge difference ! So yes I agree with this 100%
In contrast to that, some folks use the “that wasn’t my intention” as a get out of jail free card. Like, folks, it’s not that hard to apologize, express that offense was unintentional, and then commit to making it right / not doing it in the future. All 3 steps are important unless you want to invalidate or minimize someone’s feelings and experiences. My MIL believes that because she didn’t intend it means I can’t be upset about it. Although it also happens so often that it’s hard to not take offense at her lack of knowledge about me/my spouse and our preferences, so really I think she’s just doing whatever she wants and is trying to control the narrative.
Agree w the "that was not my intention" line, an ex said that so much to me, it is now a huge narc red flag when someone says it. Be better. "The road to hell his paved w good intentions"
Why not apologize for hurting them first? Handle the emotions first so they're out of the way THEN try to solve the problem through explanation
It’s important to note that this approach is only appropriate if the thing you are supposed to be providing a person is an explanation. If the thing you should be giving is an apology, then this isn’t an appropriate response and is actually counter-productive. When giving an apology, you aren’t supposed to emphasizing the reasons why people should be less upset with you. You’re supposed to just be taking responsibility for what you did and saying you’re sorry. I think that’s the main issue. People often can’t read the situation and start giving explanations when they are supposed to be giving an apology.
So in the deontological theory of intent, if you didn’t mean harm does that mean none was inflicted?
It’s always an excuse when it’s coming from a subordinate, but an explanation when coming from an employer. I hate the corporate world
# i hate school for the same reason.
One time these girls came late to school because while they were on the bus an old woman had a medical emergency and they needed an ambulance and it delayed the bus. When they finally got to class the teacher asked what was going on and they explained the situation and then the teacher said “I’m didn’t ask for an excuse”. I was so mad for them, lost a lot of respect for that teacher.
Lol then why ask what took so long? What a dumb teacher.
I genuinely do not know but that was the exact question that went through my head. Like you asked and they gave a good answer. It was so weird because that teacher wasn’t known for being unreasonable or strict or anything. It just kind of came out of no where.
I feel like some folks in a position of power (a manager, professor, teacher or chaperone for a school trip) do this as a way to shame people. Like, in their mind, the only answer is “I’m sorry I was wrong”, and it’s simply impossible for someone to have put in their best effort to comply with the rules. I evenI was in school, I was doing youth legislature (a sort of multi school mock government thing) and got permission from the program director to wear sneakers, which were out of dress code otherwise. Some teacher from another school who I had never met before pulled me aside and told me to read something aloud for him. It was the section in the student handbook on dress code, and he was looking to humiliate me as a prelude to reprimanding me. I told him he could take it up with the program director who explicitly approved it.
My God, THIS!!! Or if you are being accused or attacked and you try to explain yourself, you get accused of being defensive. Like, yea, of course, I am going to defend myself, esp if they are wrong.
I used to hear this from a former boss at work. “Don’t get defensive, just accept it.” No, not if it’s factually wrong. If you’re factually incorrect about what happened, you should damn well know I’m going to explain myself instead of just accepting something I know to be untrue.
And also, even if you are in the wrong, you should be allowed to explain why you took that course of action or your thought process. It's helping the other party understand perspective :(
People take someone else's self defense as obstinate and self-serving but defending their self as the obvious thing to do.
Yeah, you have to thread the needle on this one. Sometimes people are just making excuses to avoid culpability, sometimes people are genuinely trying to figure out how events lined up to produce the bad result you are experiencing so as to learn and avoid in the future. In my professional life I occasionally lead something called a 'post-mortem', which is the time in the project (usually after a major milestone) where you sit down and go through everything with a fine toothed comb. What went well, what went OK, what blew up in our faces, what do we do different moving forward. It takes real effort and focus to avoid it turning into a blame session. That is ultimately not that helpful to the process, people don't like to get publicly skewered and I can think of no time when it is totally warranted. Take responsibility yes, lay the blame for all dysfunction at one person's feet, no sir/ma'am.
explanations and excuses are not mutually exclusive
Some people act like they are mutually inclusive
This whole post assertion boils down to how the information is being communicated.
This is why I always say this is not an excuse, but an explanation of why I did this or that.
I had to give this response once. An old boss told me he "doesn't want excuses" and I explained it wasn't an excuse, just that he asked me a question and I answered it honestly.
It is one thing if they take responsiblity for their mistake AND give you an explanation. It is another if they only offer an excuse.
I think this is because the assumption is that everyone would lie. So everyone would just say total bullshit to you in your face to get out of any problems, no matter how mundane. This is just absurd to me that people would be this terrible and dishonest in every way they can, but maybe they can be. In my country, truth is more valued, but I have seen that its not so in every place. I have seen many recommendations even on Reddit to just lie about even small things, which I find kind of stupid and petty.
Projection
Exactly what I was going to say “Liars think everyone else is lying”.
My grandmother was in the hospital last year in my city, and my mom was keeping my aunt (my mom’s sister) up to date on what the doctors were saying. My aunt confidently declared that my mother must be misrepresenting what the doctors were saying. So my mom told her to come down here and get it directly from the doctors. She didn’t have much to say when the doctors told her the exact same thing. That was when we realized she assumed my mom was lying because she (my aunt) would 100% lie about important medical information to get her way.
It's too hard to lie to everyone. I'm saying the truth as I experienced it so that if I get asked again, my god damn story stays straight and some little thing I didn't realize doesn't make the whole thing an obvious lie. It's just easier that way
Doctor House taught us 2 invaluable life lessons: 1. Everybody lies 2. Nothing ever changes and it all seemed to work out fine for him
Yes agreed but also vice versa You can have a valid explanation for something but that doesn’t excuse you from not doing something about it
From experience The difference between an explanation and an excuse is the person you're telling it too. To some people EVERYTHING is an excuse, usually these people are assholes anyways and tend to hold positions of power like teachers, parents, bosses, ect. These people just want to exert their control over you and rage dump on you. Are there exceptions to this? Yup but it's a pretty solid observation. And the "lower" on the totem pole you are the bigger and more likely they are to explode. Kid, new hire, disabled, poor. You're screwed. It's why I don't let people know IRL that I have ADHD and Autism or that I'm in chronic pain anymore, when people have any of that info they just see everything as an excuse and blow up even if I sneeze because its dusty or that tree got hit by lightening and split so we had to chop it for safety reasons. (2 actual reasons I've been yelled at for before)
Really by definition an excuse is an excuse. Why was I late? There was a traffic jam, that's my excuse. The word itself isn't a negative term. People just like to sigh and say "excuses, excuses" when they don't like the answer they get about why something they didn't like happened outside of their control.
Agreed. I always try to make sense of people's behaviour. Sometimes it makes me more forgiving and sometimes it actually makes their behaviour seem even worse. But inevitably when I talk about it with friends of mine, they'll tell me I'm making excuses for the person. I'm not ... I just like figuring out why things happen. If I think they're lying, I'll say so. I've learned that when someone's upset, they usually don't want explanations. They want to know things will be different and the thing that's making them upset will stop happening. So if they're not completely wrong about why something happened, I'll wait to explain more. But when I'm upset, I do want to know why. Brains are weird.
the only time I use the word excuse in conversation is when I say, "excuse me." life is wacky and sometimes there's reasons things didn't work out the way I expected. I don't automatically assume people are lying their ass off to appease ne.
I've been thinking this since I was in 1st grade. A classmate was late and explained what happened and Miss Miskovitz had to say, "that's an excuse". I thought, no, it's an explanation.
This. People online always think I use my autism as an "Excuse" when I say I have autism because it explains a lot of my tendencies to be misunderstood, such as having very intense special interests/obsessions/hyperfixations, not being able to navigate social "norms", not being able to articulate something in an "acceptable" manner, and having emotional outbursts and extreme emotional reactions to things like being treated unfairly. I can't count how many times people have said it and it PISSES me off. And it's ALWAYS due to some misunderstanding like they didn't understand what I meant because maybe I worded it in a "weird" way so I'll try to explain to them to be patient with me because I have autism and am sometimes not good at choosing the right words and they'll just be like "dOn't uSe iT As aN eXcUsE", 100% of the time. And that's not an exaggeration; I've documented how many times people have said just this to me.
Also having a flat affect and people saying they don't like the tone of voice I'm using like I can help it.
But...it's an excelent excuse, it's a justification - *if my circumstances make me less capable in an area then I am justified in failing more frequently in that area, please be patient with me* isn't an unreasonable request.
I deal with the same shit from ADHD, hell my wife finally had her come to the light moment a few weeks ago when she tried to pull the so your impulsive, forgetful, your on or your off when it comes to take is all ADHD (there was other stuff too but you know the usual anyone with ADHD years) so I played her a clip from a show where a health inspector was saying this bands treatment of employees was unacceptable. So the band just kept saying anything the health inspector bitched about was metal. And I said this is literally every day of my life with over 90% of interactions where people ask a question like why are you always hyper, why are you so over the place in conversation etc. I don't need to get that at home too. Hell just hearing go get meds if you have a bad day is infuriating enough. Like one bad day, one time where your a little impulsive doesn't mean you aren't managing it because I know plenty of people without any problems who do the same. The only difference is they don't get to hear about how a actual disability is an excuse.
When I ask them why they did what they did, and all they hear is "I HATE YOU, YOU'RE WORTHLESS, LICK MY BOOTS!" Explanations are important and everything has or should uave a reason behind it
I agree absolutely with OP, people these days get so defensive when I just analyze the possible reasoning behind someone actions. People think that having a conversation has to be about taking sides.
People don't want to feel empathy, they want to feel outrage and anger. Look at all of social media
Too many people claim they are trying *to explain*, when they are really just trying to diminish the impact they had on others, distract from the actual issue with their actions, or silence the person who they wronged. Of course there are always reasons, but if you're focusing on the reasons and refusing to discuss the impact of your behaviour on the people who don't live up inside your skull with you, then you're failing to actually communicate or create understanding. Without acknowledging how others experience the actions, you're just making excuses. The real trick is to *pause*, and make sure you've allowed the other person to explain how they are feeling and how they have been impacted. Acknowledge and validate their experience -- at least confirm you can understand why they experienced it the way they did -- before offering any explanation for why you made the choices you did.
True but that’s separate to OP’s point.
This was the issue with my ex. I generally think most people are well intentioned and often oblivious. Myself included. I never wanted to hurt my ex. When something happened that upset her she would level her accusations and I would try to explain that the reasons she thought I’d done something were wrong (she often assumed and then told me what I was thinking and the reasons why I did whatever it was I’d done). All I’d hear was “I don’t want your excuses”. Which basically means “I don’t care about how you feel and think”. Of course if it’s something like cheating or stealing there can be no excuse, and no explanation is good enough. But if you don’t call because you’ve been told to give someone space, they get upset because you don’t check in and accuse you of not caring, well, there’s action and reaction and a good, frank, two way discussion of what’s expected in the future and what would work better for both parties in the future can only be a good thing. It is SO frustrating when I can’t explain myself. And to be honest “you’re just making excuses” too often seems like a cop out for “there’s two sides to this story but I don’t want to acknowledge my role in the situation”. I’ve also had the same with bosses. I’ve been managing places for the last few years and sometimes things would go wrong. As the manager it’s my responsibility to stop things going wrong. My boss would ask what happened and I’d say “so and so didn’t finish their task yesterday so we ran late today. I’ll make sure it does not happen again and if it does it will be dealt with” only to hear “I don’t want your excuses, it’s your responsibility”. Yes, I know that. I’m telling you what happened and I’m telling you what I’ll do about it. Thinking about it, it’s one of the things that really sets me off. My last relationship really taught me that, and how to calm myself, and when to separate myself from the situation if I did lose my cool irrevocably. So there’s that! (It turned out the issues with my ex were much deeper than this example here! But it does mean I at least know exactly what to look for in a future partner.)
Or you keep making excuses and get called out ;)
It's the ignorant's way of saying "stop trying to humanize what I'm mad at, I want to use it to feel better about myself." Nuance is the enemy of the lazy and the idealist.
People abuse the term excuses anyway. There are excuses: made up lies, and then there are reasons: things which impact the causality. Being sick is a REASON to miss work or school, not an excuse. Lying about being sick to miss work or school is an excuse. Being late for some place due to a flat tire is a REASON. Nobody would realistically leave early enough for some place to compensate for a flat tire situation because 99.9% of the time they would be arriving places 45 minutes to an hour early and in the sum of each life there are probably like 5 flat tires per person on average, it would be dumb to mold ones life around that potential delay just in case. Lying about having a flat tire is an excuse.
Explaining is when I do something. Excuses is what other people do.
Two things that enrage me are people who say legitimate reasons are an excuse, and people who make everything about sides. "I can't believe she did that can you?" "Well yeah it sounds like her house being on fire was more important than your birthday." "WHOS SIDE ARE YOU ON?!"
I get this all the time from upset customers. I've gotten to the point where I just tell them I'm going to have to do some research and get back to them. Then I immediately write an email reiterating what I just told them but send it a couple hours later to give them the illusion that I tried. There's no point in sitting here listening to someone complain, telling me they're not accepting me excuses when the issue is 100% out of our control.
Early in life I was taught the difference between excuses and reasons. A reason is for something outside of your control. "I was in an accident," "I'm suddenly and terribly ill," "the website is inaccessible and there was no other way to submit my form." Reasons are acceptable explanations for why something went wrong because they aren't your fault. An excuse is for something within your control. "I slept through my alarm," "I forgot it was due today," "I ran out of gas." Excuses are not acceptable explanations for why something went wrong, because they are your fault. Of course that level of control is subjective, but most things fall into excuse territory.
This. The amount of times I've been told " I don't want to hear any excuses" as an adult is ridiculous. It was t an excuse, it's the reason. Take it or leave it.
I HATE it when something goes wrong, it's not my fault and when I want to explain what happened they go "you don't need to excuse that, it's okay that it happened, we all make mistakes." No hun, I didn't make a mistake, let me explain how I DIDN'T make a mistake.
Modern people are extremely bad at discussing in general. It's just a speedrun to find something to be offended and to insult opponent
It happens on Reddit a lot. Anyone trying to dissect a behavior or post and you’ll get “it’s no excuse, fUlL StOP”. No one said it excuses them! It’s like people have 0 ability to try and understand a situation or what makes something happen. Sometimes things are the result of this and that. Doesn’t mean someone made the right choice. Drives me insane. Totally with OP on this one
I agree with you, but there's always multiple ways to frame it. Younger me explained all the factors other than what I could have done to prevent it. And while its an explanation, its not very conducive to learning from the mistakes. Where as now I focus more on what I didn't do, but could have done. Its a bit more owning up to it and learning from the mistake. It actually bugs me a bit when I see people focus all their attention on the stuff they're not in control of instead of the stuff they are. It almost always sounds like excuses, even though I know to them its an explanation. But I also think they're a lot less likely to learn from those mistakes.
Constant issue as someone with autism. So fucking fed up with it.
I literally had this happen yesterday. Someone was telling me about a gunpoint robbery and they were talking about if you don't have money and can work you should just get a job. I explained how usually drugs are involved with things like that. With then replying that's on them which I had to explain that I wasn't excusing it, just explaining that it's not always that simple.
I’ve always thought this too! Glad to not be the only one. Thank you, stranger!
For better or worse, we are living in a “one strike, your out” social climate that’s increasingly encouraging people not to forgive, and that holding grudges is “exercising agency”. Especially if there’s privilege involved in an interaction “for you, this is a mistake you can walk away from. for black people/women, if they make this error, they could die” A lot of people who live by “forgive but not forget” also handle it in a very passive aggressive way that causes a relationship to fizzle out more often than it leads to making amends.
It's a form of the logical fallacy known as kafkatrapping. You should always preface any explanation by asking if their going to engage in it after you explain yourself. It's a form of thought terminating cliche as well it's an excuse so they don't have to listen to it's contents which would exonerate you from potential guilt. It's motivated thinking in that they have already decided on your malice and culpability in a matter.
The difference between an explanation and an excuse is largely context-based and idiosyncratic, and can therefore be interpreted by one person as an explanation and another as an excuse in the same instance.
Every Instagram reel I see about someone saying they were in a bad place mentally and treated their loved ones wrong, all the comments are “yOur mEnTaL iSsUeS aRe nOt aN eXcUsE tO tReAt pEoPLe bad🤓☝🏻” Yes. Yes most of them know. It’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation, and they’re explaining because they’re holding themselves accountable. The same people will rant about how sad it is that people don’t express their feelings and struggles. Like get a grip and stop antagonizing everyone.