How to say sorry when you’ve been rude!

I bet when your neighbour kindly invites you around for dinner with all the other mums on the street you; enjoy the evening, mingle with the guests, laugh and thank them for a lovely evening and you don’t send a couple of derogatory tweets about the other guests throughout dinner? That’s exactly what I did.

No idea why? 
I have no idea what came over me. I really struggle in social situations and get very nervous and end up launching a clanger within minutes. I’m even worse when I’m in a group of mums, probably insecurities. I don’t know what happened, but I’m guessing one of the mums said something parenting wise and instead of disagreeing with that point across the table I sent a tweet challenging their rights to be a parent to potentially thousands of people. Not good!

And to make matters worse, after I was totally rumbled by the mums, I carried on engaging with people on twitter the following day. However, I knew they were nosing at my timeline and I was trying to drop in excuses and justification which only made it worse.

Woof woof
As any guilty party (Wounded Dog Syndrome) we spend the first few hours/days trying to point our fingers at other people in an attempt to get out of a sticky situation. Yes, it wasn’t helpful that a few of the husbands follow me secretly on twitter and took it upon themselves to share hurtful messages with their wives, but that’s a risk I’ve always taken. ‘Don’t put it on twitter unless you can deal with the fall out’, which I am. If it was me, I would have pulled the person up and not exacerbated the situation. But hey, ho, the bottom line is I’m the one who is guilty.

I have apologized, but it may have come across insincere as I was in a mad rush/panic when I learned they had read the tweets even though I had deleted them later in the evening.

What to do?

However, I think this needs a lot more than an ‘I’m sorry’ and as always, I turn to humour. If I can make them laugh I might be able to cross the chasm.

I humiliated them publicly so feel they deserve a public apology. I am truly sorry. I do appreciate they will need time to heal from the hurt but what should I do?

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Author: mediocremum

A slightly older mum of one, who drinks far too much red wine and has an unhealthy obsession with her slow cooker. During the day she's an ICT Trainer, Social Media/Online Marketing consultant and does a bit of public speaking. Full Profile on Google+

16 thoughts on “How to say sorry when you’ve been rude!”

  1. Get a case of wine, pop one on each of their doorsteps with a note saying I’m sorry and move on. You shouldn’t have to apologise more than once, if they can’t accept that, then you may have to just put it down to experience. Dufus!!

    For the record, that’s the kind of thing I would do except, I’d get horribly drunk too and make an ass of myself cause I’d be nervous and down my drinks. I’m shy, not that anyone believes that!!

  2. Oh dear. I would say it depends on how you feel about these women. If you’ve never really gotten along with them anyway, I’d be tempted to say forget about it and move on as any apology might run the risk of sounding insincere. However, if you do generally like these women then a nice gesture like flowers with a hand written note could be the way to go (I think sending wine is difficult because you might send them red when they only like white and you could get frowned upon for that). I also notice you mention it happened at a party with all the mums from your street. If the whole street is now not happy with you that will require something special – how about a basket of homemade muffins for each house? Good luck, it’s a minefield!

    1. Yes it was a bit of a clanger, nice group of ladies, but all very different, however, I don’t want to ostracize hubby and daughter. I can live with it but not fair on them.

  3. Personally I am the type of person who confronts people, I am not one to say something about someone behind their back. That said, I don’t see anything wrong with putting a tweet out there for conversational purposes. I don’t like it that people are secretly viewing & gossiping, that just show no class. Thus, I guess you can probably gather I chose the last – f*** it and move on.

    1. I did have that same train of thought but bottom line I shouldn’t have tweeted it in the first place.

  4. I voted for the starkers with a message painted on your arse option. Then I realised that you’ve got such a skinny backside, the text would be tiny. I shall vote again ;)

    1. Thanks Helen, that is the difficult part……going to have to pass it off as a learning experience and move on. If they think I genuinely think that about them then there is nothing I can do. Let’s catch up soon.

  5. You sound so much like me! I also get nervous round groups of women and have also said/done awful things because of my own insecurities. Once I said “like you’ve done so much with your life” to somebody at a dinner party! Wasn’t my finest hour!

    If it helps, I feel your pain! Wish I had a solution to the problem.

    I would say “phone and apologise” but to be quite honest, my own neighbour is still waiting for an apology for the last time I spoke to her and said she was “a silly, vacuous woman that needs to get a life” so that would be a tiny bit hypocritical! lol

    Hun, you are an amazing, funny, exciting, special person……and real! Surely nobody expects you to be perfect?

    Honestly? I would forgive you. There is no reason why these women would not too. And if they don’t, then that is their loss.

  6. I would just forget it and move on – why should you get on with these people just because you live near them??

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