Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I kind of figured that by the time I got to may age I’d be done and dusted with the games people play but this weekend I found out that wasn’t the case.
Without going into the boring details of who said what to whom, suffice it to say someone I thought I could trust let me down a pretty bad way. Lies were told and that (understandably) caused a knock-on effect that meant a friend and I were subjected to dogs abuse by another friend.
One thing that is for sure about being the age I am is that I can’t be bothered with the complications of behind the back ‘he said, she said’. If something doesn’t tally up I’ll throw it all out into the open and deal with it that way. Far better to let the offending party trip themselves up out in front of all concerned than to allow for a situation to get worse because you’re busy trying to limit the damage.
When it all kicked-off I was pretty pissed-off with all involved. The liar didn’t really have a leg to stand on and as far as I’m concerned isn’t worth bothering with, but the one that hurt was the one that took the liar’s word as truth without checking first. I figured they’d be a sad loss to our circle of friends but if that’s the way they were we were far better off without them. In all honesty I didn’t think that any kind of apology could make up for the things that were said so once I cleared the matter up with the truth rather than the original lie, I turned and walked away determined that I never wanted anything to do with any of the parties involved again.
A couple of hours later I was treated to the most genuine and honest apology I’ve ever heard from the person who should have known better than to listen to the lies and I just smiled my thanks and accepted the apology. To be honest, although I’m not usually one to hold a grudge, there are times it’s hard not to so I was surprised at how quickly my thoughts of anger turned to admiration.
Sorry is hard at the best of times and none of us like having to say it. Often, the difficulty with having to say you’re sorry can fill you with so much dread that you just avoid it and the person rather than step up to the plate and admit you were wrong. Not so this time round. They stood up with dignity and genuine honesty, accepted their culpability and asked to be forgiven. As simple as that
I guess the moral to my weekend of drama is that everyone makes mistakes – it’s human nature – but the thing that separates the men from the boys is the art of a good apology.
