What does an apology mean to you?

This question was inspired by this question.

For me an apology clears the air. I am not really looking for the person to feel very badly or say how horrible they were. At least not for most arguments or misunderstandings.

I realized how differently people look at apologies a few years ago. Some people, when the other person apologizes, they feel justified that indeed that person apologizing was wrong, is a piece of crap and should be punished. Hell, the culpable party actually came out and acknowledged they were awful by apologizing. Apologizing like this makes things worse it seems, they feel powerful.

I also found out that apologizing for hurting someone’s feeling is not good enough, this seems to be accepted in the psych community at this point and time. You have to be specific aout what you did wrong. I disagree. I think two people can have two points of view of a situation, apologize if anything said hurt the others feelings, but still feel strongly they did nothing wrong from their perspective. There is not always a right and wrong, sometimes there are two rights.

So, how about you? When someone apologizes what do you hear? What do you want to hear? When you apologize what do you mean?