How Many Times a Day Do You Say "Sorry"?

I said “I’m sorry” 12 times last Monday through Wednesday. Yet here’s the thing: I actually had a great week. I started a new job, which I really like so far, and prepped for my 30th birthday. I have great friends and family, a great boyfriend—life is good!  But you might not know it, considering how many times I apologized for my actions last week. Take a look, then read on below to find out how my well-intentioned S-bombs are actually hurting me in the long run.

MONDAY
1. 1.10 a.m.: It’s my first day on the job. My coworker explains how to check our company e-mail, but I forget where to click an hour later, so I ask him—complete with a “Sorry to bug you, but…”
2. 10:30 a.m.: I don’t know where the printer is. I ask my coworker again, topping my apology off with an “I promise I’ll quit asking you so many questions…”
3. 12 p.m.: We are sent home for the day because Hurricane Juno is about to take over New York.
4. 4 p.m.: I arrive at my boyfriend’s apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, pasta and beer provisions in hand, and we agree to do our work by his roaring fireplace. I accidentally unplug his Internet to plug in my laptop and apologize profusely because he was on a Skype meeting and I disconnected his call.
5. 10 p.m.: My boyfriend wants to stay up and watch movies, but I’m exhausted from my first day on the job and nervous about the week ahead. I apologize for being lame.

TUESDAY
6. 10 a.m.: Snow day! All of New York is shut down for the blizzard. We go on a coffee mission, and I tell our barista I’m sorry for paying for two lattes on a credit card because I don’t have cash.
7. 12 p.m.: I get an e-mail from one of my editors (I still freelance on the side) asking me to answer a couple questions she has on one of my stories. I apologize for not being clearer in my first draft.
8. 5 p.m.: Dad texts to see how I’m doing in the storm. I remember I didn’t call him back two days ago and apologize for being so MIA.
9. 8 p.m.: My boyfriend organizes a last-minute snow-day dinner with his friends and invites me to come, but I have too much work to do. I tell him I’m sorry for not hanging out.

WEDNESDAY
10. 10:30 a.m.: Back in the office. The IT guy comes over to my desk and explains a task. I don’t understand what to do, so I ask him to tell me again—and apologize for making him explain himself twice.
11. 7 p.m.: Heading home. I get into a packed subway car, squish myself between a hipster with Beats headphones and an office girl with stilettos, and end up falling into both of them, noticeably crushing the girl’s stilettos. I apologize to both (rightly so), but the guy can’t hear me because Beats, and the girl says it’s fine even though I can see in her annoyed face that it isn’t.
12. 9 p.m.: I call my friend and cancel our dinner for Thursday night. I have too much work to do, and I want to save my energy for my birthday weekend. I tell her I’m sorry for being too busy to function.

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So what gives? How did I manage to bust out 12 apologies when I was actually just working hard and trying to consider other peoples’ feelings all week? Here’s the weird part: I hardly realized I was doing it. All of my S-bombs just slipped out of my mouth naturally, kind of like how the F-bomb does when I stub my toe getting out of bed.  And that, experts say, is the root of the problem.

“Habitually over-apologizing—saying ‘sorry’ when you mean ‘excuse me,’ or just to ease tension when you’ve done nothing wrong—can work against you,” explains Bryan Dik, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Colorado State University and cofounder of jobzology.com. “Chronically apologizing for things that aren’t your fault can hurt your self-esteem, make other people uncomfortable, and let the offender off the hook.” 

Christine Hassler, a millennial expert and author of Expectation Hangover, says that it can also make you seem weak, like a giant people-pleaser. “It’s like you’re saying, ‘Let me have your approval,’” she says. “At some level, you’re putting yourself below them, like they’re more worthy than you are, which isn’t true.” And finally, apologizing on the reg can have a boy-who-cried-wolf effect: “It can lessen the effect of [an apology] when you actually do need to throw one out there,” she says.

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 So how do you know if you need to apologize or not? Start here: You’re probably overdoing it already. “Apologies are a very intimate act and should be reserved for special occasions,” says Hassler. When: “You should apologize if you’ve done something wrong and want to take responsibility for it and make amends,” says Dik. That can be anything from spilling coffee on someone’s shirt to apologizing to your friend when you know you hurt her by forgetting her birthday.

In most other cases, look at where you can exchange a “thank you” for an “I’m sorry.” “If someone helped you or gave up their time, don’t apologize for not knowing—just thank them for making the time to explain something new to you,” says Hassler. If you have to bail at the 11th hour, just reschedule—no biggie. The important thing to remember is that it’s okay not to know things; it’s okay to play the balancing act. It’s not okay to apologize for something when you didn’t do anything wrong.

Now, with this new advice in mind, I have a few closing remarks on my own sorry overdose: First of all, I hereby declare that I will never again apologize to a coworker for teaching me how to do something when I’m new. I realize now that that is absurd. Next, I won’t worry about hurting my friends’ or boyfriend’s feelings when I have to cancel plans or going MIA on my dad for two days—if my reasons are legit. They understand because they’ve been there, too. As for the subway stiletto girl? I’ll stand by that apology, for sure. I made a serious dent in her stiletto, not to mention her wallet if she had to buy a whole new pair.

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