I'm not sorry, but thank you?
February 10, 2016 8:29 PM

I was reading an article(?) a little ways back that was encouraging women to stop apologizing for things, and instead encouraged using the term "thank you". For example, instead of saying "I'm sorry for being late" say "Thank you for your patience!" What do you think about this?

I've started saying "thank you" instead of "I'm sorry" or "apologies" and it feels really awkward. But is it awkward because it is a socially weird thing to not apologize or even rude for when things go wrong, or am I just feeding into my own sexist expectations of women having to apologize for everything?

Examples include:
"I'm sorry to not get back to you right away" vs. "Thank you for your patience."

or

"I'm sorry we can't accommodate that" vs. "We can't accommodate that, thank you for understanding."

Obviously, you could do a combo of "I'm sorry" and "thank you", but what do you think about using "thank you" instead of "I'm sorry" in social contexts?
posted by Toddles to Human Relations (2 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: This is borderline chatfilter - if you want to email us in the next hour or so with a rewrite that gives it a clear question to answer, please do. -- restless_nomad

I'm female and I actively try to eliminate apologizes when they aren't merited. However, being late is worthy of an apology. "Thank you for your patience" without acknowledging your mistake is weird and presumptuous. There's really no reason to believe the person was patiently waiting for you.

BTW - Your framing here borders on chatfilter and you might want to rework it.
posted by 26.2 at 8:39 PM on February 10, 2016


Huh, sounds like this is chat-filter. Thank you?
posted by Toddles at 8:55 PM on February 10, 2016


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