Popping & Locking It Clean: How to Apologise.

(Put in a letter, and stick it in someone’s mailbox.)

Like. Now.

There is no time like absolutely now, to apologise. When you are wrong, (and boy you know you are), there is no time like today not tomorrow or next century (oh, maybe she’ll forget about it), to wait for the time to be able to do the apology properly.

1/ Be Proactive.
Know when you are wrong. People have a default when it comes to being OK, and when you’ve crossed the line, and not told - you may have stepped over that boundary, and you need an apology to get you back into their good graces. (And maybe you should get to know them, considering you are no longer spoken to and you used to be friends or at least civil mates.)

2/ First-Bullet-Point Affirmative.
Just do the deed now, put it on the First Bullet Point of your To-Do List. It may be old world serious, but it is necessary to be living upon the floats of the dense and wicked - a proper reality check means you need to understand that offending people, are a definite no-no in today’s civilised world. People’s rights are your job to understand. And if you hadn’t on-boarded this information in school or places you are meant to be informed in and taught - you are going to be told off, reminded, and bludgeoned with information regarding how to live within civil society without being burdens to people. (Point one to: schools & education.) I’m sure they have it on a YouTube video somewhere, just not really explained more in fine detail, to equip you to dine with kings and queens someday, but you get the point.

3/ Be Serious.
The dictates of civil associations is to understand what needs to happen for things to run smoothly. (Yes, there is a standard.) Sometimes, the prescribed methods of apology differs in regard to: offence, formatting, addressee, and whether the offence was intentional - or as an aside, to the life that you lead / familial methods to acquiring or making propositions.

4/ Don’t Be An A*hole, waiting to happen.
This applies to BOTH work, and personal life obviously. But i think a blaring jerk happens differently and have different stances to make things matter more or matter less. At work, people who are assholes merely differ in organisational opinion or possibly, have different ways. They are sorted with the talk, and the brevity of proper manager talks about organisational outcomes. Personal time is held sacred by the busy ones (you know who you are without anyone telling you) and now need to understand that even mere collaboration (off-paper handshakes) negotiations to some cultures, are legit. And being an asshole isn’t about specific point-by-point enumeration on personal definitions. You’ll know if you’ve caused offence / been offensive - and you need to admit it. Or else, you are an A*hole.

5/ Carry A Big Bunch Of Flowers About You. (And send accordingly.)
This is easily downgraded to a potted plant, or someone else to send for you. Via their credit card - if you are that miffed still, but need to get the apology done. And you need to get it done, promptly.

6/ Put It In A Letter, and Stick It In Your Letterbox.
Sometimes things are hard to say, or we simply clam up in the sense that we are no longer needed/ or what is the “chickening-out affirmative failsafe”. And when there are no more salive to lick that stamp sticky, there is the recommended crank of the franking machine, self-adhesive stamp, or of a country/ your personally designed crested wax to seal the deal.

7/ Pat Yourself in the Back.
Rewarding yourself for the elusive recounter (or what is the crowd’s way of appreciating being publicly courteous to others, even as strangers - but not prostitute-like, there’s a difference) on being good, is essential to knowing that your goodness is why this process is possible.

8/ Ask for a Response.
(Or perhaps a way to know if apology was accepted.) By text message, the possible responses you will receive are either: ‘thanks, good to know’, “im so glad you said so…i was feeling a little piqued by what you said”, ‘fuck off, stupid’, or ‘i wasn’t sure how that came about - that was ages ago, it was nothing’. The last one is gracious, as all established friends have committed mistakes - and mishaps happen and if you get the lucky brush-off or “pretend-forgets” response, and sync back to friendly non-polite banter and stream-of-convo no matter what - this is the lucky non-automatic type of response. The first and second, are standard for public/ strangers/ non-friend politeness. The third, is a reminder that rude begets rude - and that there are humans in the midst of all the robotic responsiveness. But all these, are earned.

9/ Prepare For Penance.
(This could come in the form of being the recipient of a very socially painful 5-month silent treatment.) But it won’t be a societal incarceration, because that’s not legal. Unless you were really bad by that person’s definition, and they get you into trouble, and (if you felt you were undeserving of that, and can’t defend yourself, because it was done very silently) you are then the

10/ Say sorry, more directly and, more timely - not more cryptically.
Sometimes, the difference between skirting the issue and being a qualified shrug-miser is the mystery to all relationships. We all operate under guises from time to time, depending on the complicated types of relationship we engage in - and we have definite/ variable curves of learning, as well as layers of hurt-saturation-absorption / layers-of-levelling / capacity of processing. It is safer to say sorry, (as it is better to be always safe than sorry) - no buts about it.

Writer’s Note: //Today, i got a bunch of flowers, the 22nd of January - after a long time of not getting any for traditional occasions. Strange.//