Lizzie Post still remembers the time she walked into a party and an acquaintance greeted her with exciting news: “You had a baby!”
“Nope,” Post said.
“You got engaged!”
Nope again.
“You got married!”
“I’m going to the bar,” Post replied.
Post, co-president of the Emily Post Institute and Emily Post’s great-great-granddaughter, knew the woman meant well. She had apparently heard that something momentous had happened—it hadn’t—and cycled through three incorrect milestones trying to identify it. Fortunately, she eventually stopped guessing: a relief for everyone involved.
Life is full of faux pas, but even when you’re the one making it, you can dig your way out of social quicksand most of the time. Here’s what psychologists and etiquette experts suggest saying, plus when to stop talking.
First, take your foot out of your mouth
Your immediate reaction after saying something you regret might be to turn fire-truck red. Then comes the urge to reach for the very thing that got you into trouble in the first place: more words. People often try to explain, defend, or excuse their misfired remark, says Karina Schumann, a social psychologist and associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies apologies and conflict resolution. The instinct is self-protective: They’re frantically trying to repair their image in the other person’s eyes.
“What actual repair looks like is to shift the attention to the other person,” Schumann says. “Put aside this very strong need that you have to repair your self-image, and instead think: ‘If I were on the receiving end of this, what would I need to hear?’”
Pause, acknowledge the impact of what you said, and take responsibility. She suggests phrasing it like this: “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.” Or: “I can see that my joke was insensitive. I apologize.”
Then take a breath. More words will still be available later, should the situation require them.
Match the apology to the offense
A minor blunder and a painful faux pas shouldn’t trigger matching productions of remorse. Forget an acquaintance’s name? A quick “I’m sorry—please remind me” may be enough. Ask when someone is due when she isn’t pregnant, or make a joke that accidentally lands on a painful subject? That calls for a direct acknowledgment of the harm, without trying to laugh it off, and perhaps a longer conversation if the other person wants one.
The person responsible isn’t always the best judge of what it will take to repair the situation. Schumann points to a phenomenon researchers call the “magnitude gap”: People who cause harm tend to view it as less severe and less damaging to the relationship than the people on the receiving end do. The offender may think, I apologized; this should be over. The other person may still be wondering how the offender could fail to understand how much it hurt.
Don’t turn an apology into an autobiography
An apology doesn’t require an origin story, a director’s commentary, or a guided tour of everything happening inside the offender’s head.
“Blame is like a hot potato,” says Jennifer Thomas, a psychologist and co-author of The 5 Apology Languages: The Secret to Healthy Relationships. Defensive responses—including “I was only joking,” “I didn’t mean it that way,” and “Why did you take it so personally?”—toss it back to the injured person. They minimize the harm, gloss over the offender’s intentions, or suggest the other person is simply too sensitive.
An explanation can sometimes make what happened easier to understand, Schumann says, but it has to provide context without weakening responsibility. Lead with: “I shouldn’t have done that. There’s no excuse for it.” Then ask whether an explanation would be helpful.
A digital faux pas calls for the same restraint. If you send a text to the wrong person with information you wouldn’t have divulged to them otherwise, Post suggests writing: “I’m so sorry. Clearly that text wasn’t meant for you—and I probably shouldn’t have been sending it anyway.” Then leave it at that.
Resist the apology encore
For a minor, accidental blunder—maybe you stuck your toe in your mouth instead of your whole foot—one sincere apology is generally enough. “The more you apologize, the more it’s about you,” Post says. That means no apology cookies, no anguished message the following morning, and no campaign to extract an official declaration that everything is fine.
Serious harm is different. Schumann cautions against treating every apology as a “one-shot thing,” as though finding the perfect words should settle the matter. The other person may need a longer conversation, an effort to make amends, or simply more time.
“The timing of any forgiveness should stay wholly in the hands of the person who was hurt,” Thomas says. An apology offers them a choice, not a deadline.
What if you don’t realize you made a faux pas until hours or days later? It’s usually better to address it than hope the other person forgot, therapist Elika Dadsetan-Foley says. Try: “I’ve been thinking about what I said yesterday. I realize it may have been insulting, and I’m sorry I didn’t recognize that in the moment.”
The next time you meet, act normal
The next time you run into the neighbor you assumed was sick but who had merely gone makeup-free, or the acquaintance who received a text that was definitely not meant for them, offer a friendly greeting. Avoiding the person can make one uncomfortable exchange feel like a permanent rupture; bringing it up again can give a dying embarrassment fresh oxygen.
Keep the story to yourself, rather than retelling it as evidence of what a hopeless fool you are. “You may think that’s you throwing yourself under the bus, but you’re dragging the other person with you,” Post says. Your self-deprecation may get a laugh, but it also makes the other person’s embarrassment public.
Fortunately, most faux pas don’t require a lifelong of self-flagellation. If you’ve apologized sincerely and the other person seems ready to move on, follow their lead. “We all get stuff wrong from time to time,” Post says. Sometimes recovering gracefully means making amends. Other times, it means saying sorry—and letting everyone get on with the party.
The post How to Recover From an Embarrassing Faux Pas appeared first on TIME.
