I compared two ways to apologize after a bad comment and one worked way better

Back in 2019, I had a small cooking blog and I made a really tone-deaf post about budget meals during a crisis. I tried the standard apology first, just saying I was sorry and moving on. The comments got worse, people thought I was faking it. Then I did a full breakdown of why I was wrong, listed specific things I learned, and shared actual resources. The difference was night and day, people actually forgave me. Has anyone else found that a detailed apology works better than a quick sorry?

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1 Comment

ben_ross5156m ago

Did you actually have to train yourself to write that way or did it just feel natural once you got past the initial awkwardness? Because I feel like the reason a lot of these quick "sorry" things fail is people are so scared of looking bad they rush through it instead of sitting with the discomfort. Like the real test of an apology is whether you're willing to look stupid or vulnerable for a few minutes to actually fix things. Was there a moment during your first apology where you realized it wasn't working and you just had to scrap everything?