The passive aggressive tactic of apologizing but qualifying it in any way is the Achilles Heel of apologies.  One doesn't have to have an emotional disorder to fall into this habit and then wonder why his apologies don't always go over well, and I never said had one.   Gosh, a word to the wise is just that.  A wise man realizes it's no weight on his shoulders to hear it no matter to what degree it applies or it doesn't.   Whatever you guys want to do with how qualifying an apology renders it less effective at best and totally rejected at worst is fine with me.
Posted by kargiver

I think Sean would have accepted it out of hand if you'd not qualified it by saying, "[it] was  not completly fair."  Not to speak for him, but that's what his response indicated, and, generally speaking, a qualified apology isn't usually one that goes over 100% like you might intend.  An unqualified apology would have said, "[it] was  un fair," meaning as Sean wanted it to say, "100% unfair."  It might seem nit picky, but when you qualify it you essentially say you don't really mean it. fwiw, I used to think people were always conscious of such things, but I realize now it's often due to a passive-aggressive style upbringing where those phrases were used at home or from a habit one picks up who knows where.  My husband used to have a lot of passive quasi-aggressive phrases in his regular vocab that caused a less than favorable response from everyone (not just his wife), and he was constantly confounded by it.  One day he asked what was going on with that, and this is what I told him.  Since then he's removed those passive (semi-aggressive) phrases from his regular vocabulary, and he notices when others use them.  A book that helped, too, was  Overcoming Passive Aggression  which we read most of together.  He understood for the first time why what he thought was innocuous was coming across as aggressive (or less than sincere) to others, and it really helped. This is just a kind word to the wise, not a criticism, and I hope you'll take this in the good spirit in which its offered.  And, by the way, your screen name makes me crave pork chops.  :) ETA:  By the way, your latest post was 100% unqualified and is why I bothered posting this; it conveyed your true state of mind which is that of sincerity.
Posted by kargiver

I wouldn't have said a word about it if Sean hadn't said what he did as a response, " Get back to me when it's no longer partially fair."   I mistakenly thought that pointing out why he responded that way to what was probably meant to be a thoroughly sincere apology would be appreciated.  I guess no unsolicited advice is ever appreciated so the lesson's on me.
Posted by kargiver

Since you ask, Sean, aside from TheJoker in CC the day after the panty raid, I've never had a malicious sock puppet. I've never even had any worth mentioning. I was porkshop's restaurant, the wizard or Porkshop, it's a wonderful Porkshop, and Porkshop part deux, none of whom said anything about anybody. I obviously have bostonrob, niceymcniceynice, and the 123kid. Other than that I posted a few times as the church lady, and fabulousbartender(a transparently fake character in a letter one day, when everybody else created fake characters.) I think that's it, but if I've forgotten any it's because they're entirely insignificant. When I have something nasty to say here, I say it in this voice or I don't say it at all. Since you asked.
Posted by McBostonrob