Anatomy of an Apology

Authored by Rebecca Crouch, PhD

*Peer Review Pending*

Abstract: In this experimental trial, a woman receives a series of text messages from a man who has been known to exhibit symptoms of very high audacity levels. The 35-year-old male experimental unit has not reached out to our female particpant in over 3 weeks and she has lost interest due to a fortuitous meeting with a handsome man at a Led Zeppelin Tribute Band concert in September. The scientific term for this is that she “has no f**ks left to give”.

Body: The female participant received texts from the experimental unit on Saturday 14 October 2023 between 11:48 pm and 12:02 am on 15 October 2023.

Saturday, 11:48 pm – “Hey, things really kicked off at work since the last time I saw you.”

This is the first and perhaps most vital part of the apology anatomy. We call it The Booty Call. He’s waiting until the participant is either nice and drunk on Saturday night OR she is 33 and has already been asleep for 2 hours. Women who are drunk or sleepy or both are therefore more vulnerable to the BS. He wants the participant to respond immediately and invite him over to her Barbie Dream House. The woman in this experimental trial was in fact asleep and did not respond.

Saturday, 11:50 pm – “It’s okay, I get it”

We call this text the How-Dare-You-Fail-to-Respond-Immediately (even though I (the experimental unit) usually take 24-48 hours to respond to your “Hey how’s your week going?” texts, or more frequently, I simply don’t respond at all BECAUSE F**K YOU). The experimental unit is setting the scene for playing the victim card by sending this passive aggressive text.

Sunday, 12:02 am – “I’m sorry, this is shitty. All my random texting, etc. I just thought you would understand but I guess I was wrong.”

This final text is the richest of the three. First, the experimental unit has a strong opening by saying he is sorry. He then adds a small amount of detail about what he’s actually sorry about by saying “my random texting, etc.” As our female participant was snoozing and could not respond to this, she did not inquire to the experimental unit about what behaviors are included in the “etc.” but one could infer that he does not know and probably could not name any examples. Finally, in the last sentence of the text, he flips the script masterfully and cashes in on his previous attempt to play the victim. Even though he is sorry for his own “shitty” behavior, the fault really lies with the female participant because she “like, just doesn’t understand, bro”. It is unclear what he expected her to understand – perhaps he wanted her to understand that his job is demanding and he has no time to reply to texts or take her on dates. Perhaps he wants her to understand that he expects a response to midnight texts within 2 minutes because he’s worth that boundary. Again, the female participant did not respond, so no further data were collected in this trial. We do hypothesize that at the time of this text exchange, the experimental unit was at a bar or club trying to pick up other women, failing miserably and feeling very sad.

Clearly, further experimental trials are necessary to fully understand this communication sequence. We leave this matter with our peers in the field of study, as we are moving on to other academic endeavors.