The phrase “I didn’t mean to” is one of multiple tactics that evildoers will use to try to make themselves look innocent when they have caused harm to someone else. When an evildoer says “I didn’t mean to”, he/she may actually be telling the truth. He/she may indeed not have intended for harm to come to the other person. The catch is that he/she did not necessarily consider the potentially harmful unintended effects. As long as he/she gets what he/she wants, he/she does not care what harm may befall others in the process.
When a good person does harm to another by accident, the good person will generally feel bad, even if it was just an accident. Even when there was no negligence on the part of the good person, the good person will still feel bad if someone else gets hurt because of him/her. The bad person, on the other hand, is more concerned about whether he/she gets blamed for the incident. Indeed, you may get a glimpse into someone’s true character by examining his/her immediate reaction when harm has come upon another person because of something that he/she did. Is the immediate reaction one of genuine concern for the wellbeing of the person who was harmed? Or is the immediate reaction “I hope I don’t get blamed for this” or “I am so dead!”?
Let us say that a teenage boy is making fun of another teenage boy for being afraid of a chainsaw. The boy waves the chainsaw in the direction of the other teenage boy, while the blades are spinning. He thinks it is funny watching the other boy get scared. Suddenly, the blades get too close and the other boy loses a couple of fingers. “I didn’t mean to” the boy says. Indeed, he is telling the truth. He really did not mean to. Does that mean he is innocent? Many will agree that the answer is no.
Sometimes we see clumsy characters on television. We are supposed to laugh because they are so clumsy. Some studies have even shown that clumsy people are rated as being more likeable. No so to me. I would not want such people around any of my things. They may break something.
So suppose a clumsy person is walking around the inside of someone else’s house in a separate room from where everybody else is. He touches several things, rolling things around in his hands. Then suddenly he drops something and it breaks. “I didn’t mean to” he says. He also explains that he has been clumsy his entire life. He just can’t help it. Does that make him innocent? Not necessarily. If he knew that he was clumsy and prone to breaking things, then he would have refrained from putting himself into a position where he could cause damage to someone else’s property. Indeed, good people generally feel worse damaging something that belongs to someone else than they do damaging their own things. The bad guys, on the other hand, don’t care if they damage someone else’s things. As long as they do not get blamed.
Lip service apologies
Little children are taught to say they are sorry when they have been mean to someone, hurt someone, etc. Adults, however, sometimes abuse this expression. To evildoers, “sorry” can be a magic word that they use to make themselves look like good people that they are not. Recall the rules of politeness blog post, which discusses how easy it is to master simple rules of politeness and still be a bad person. Even the evilest people in the world know how to say ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and of course ‘sorry’.
So how do we know when an apology is a real apology or just lip service? We can tell by the person’s actions. For example, say you have a roommate and the roommate uses your kitchen appliances without asking. One day, your roommate breaks one of your kitchen appliances. Your roommate says that she is sorry, but what about her actions? Does she try to do something to make it up to you, like buy a replacement that is at least as high quality or offer to pay your share of the rent for the next month? Maybe she does get a replacement, but it is a cheaper and lower quality replacement. Meanwhile, she may continue spending money on other things for herself that she does not need. Such actions indicate that she is not actually sorry, she is just saying that she is.
Another sign that an apology is only lip service is when the person continues to recommit the offense.
Sometimes bad people can be pretty good at making their apology sound genuine. I believe their actions are more informative of where their heart is. In other words, how much of their time/money/energy/resources would they invest in making it up to you? If uttering the word “sorry” is the only thing that the person is willing to do when he/she could be doing more, then there is probably no actual remorse.
Playing dumb
Sometimes when confronted with the grave consequences of one’s actions, one will play dumb and claim that he/she did not know any better. He/she will say things like “I would never have guessed that this thing I did was so wrong…” or “I never would have guessed that that would have hurt you that much…”. The wrongdoer wants the others to figure “Hey, you learn something new every day!” In reality, this wrongdoer never put into consideration how his/her actions would affect others. The wrongdoer is just playing dumb in order to make him/herself look innocent.
Note that we all have days where we are not thinking, and sometimes we slip up and do something stupid that hurts somebody else. Because some wrongdoings really are just honest mistakes, it may be hard to tell whether the harmful action was an honest mistake or an act of evil. So when the wrongdoer exclaims that he/she “had no idea” that his/her actions would have hurt others so much, how do we know whether this expression of ignorance is genuine or fake?
One question to ask ourselves is: is it common knowledge that these actions would harm others? Another thing to consider is how well we know this person. Does he/she often harm others out of acts of negligence or thoughtlessness? Also, how much is the person willing to invest in making it up to the party that he/she has harmed?
Let us say that there is a physically attractive man at a workplace who believes that all women like him, and he goes around touching women in a sexual manner. When he gets reprimanded, he claims that he had no idea that his actions would hurt others this much. Is he innocent? Many would say he is not because it is common knowledge that touching women in a sexual manner in a work environment is wrong, and it becomes harrassment when the women make it known that the sexual touching is unwelcome.
In another example, let us say that a mishap occurs at a workplace because someone was violating safety protocols. The violator of the safety protocols explains that he did not realize how important the safety protocols were. Obviously he does not have much of a leg to stand on for claiming innocence. After all, it is everybody’s responsibility to know and to follow safety protocols.
“I don’t know how to be nice: teach me”
Another way to play dumb is saying “I don’t know how to be nice. Teach me.” Here, the person is acting like he/she does not know how to be nice. He/she figures that you cannot reasonably expect him/her to be nice if he/she does not know how to be nice in the first place.
Being nice, however, is something we learn in preschool. Small children learn what are nice words and what are mean words. They also learn how to say you are sorry when you hurt somebody. Even mentally retarded people know how to be nice. Therefore, a normal adult most definitely is going to know how to be nice. He/she is just choosing not to be nice.
Furthermore, by requesting that you “teach her” how to be nice, the person is attempting to use up your valuable time, and without any just compensation, aside from perhaps some empty promises that she will eventually get nicer by following your “teachings”.
Gaslighting
To gaslight means to manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning his/her own sanity. This article discusses many different kinds of gaslighting in abusive relationships and the detrimental effects they can have.
Let us say that the victim attempts to confront the perpetrator about something that he/she said, and the perpetrator says something like “I never said that. You just heard me wrong. What I really meant was …” What this implies to the victim is that the victim was hurt over something that never happened. In this way, fault is placed squarely on the victim for his/her own pain.
Now I have a pretty good memory of the other person’s exact words, particularly when the other person says something that hurt me. On at least one occasion, when a woman told me that I heard her wrong, and told me what she “actually meant”, I knew she was lying because I remember her exact words, and those exact words did not match what she said that she meant.
One technique that can be utilized against gaslighting is to record the other person’s exact words as soon as possible after the person has said something that hurt you. In this way you have a written record of what happened, and it will be easier for you to trust your own perception of what happened.
It is possible to hear someone wrong and get hurt because of it. However, people who are abusive tend to show ongoing abusive behaviors. In other words, they will say/do hurtful things to you again and again. When you know that someone has already hurt you on multiple occasions, you can figure that he/she is most likely lying when he/she claims that you heard him/her wrong. Such an individual is not trustworthy.
Double-tongued
Double-tongued refers to a deliberate deceptiveness, especially by pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another. When people are double-tongued, they say one thing at one point in time, and then say something contradictory at a later point in time without acknowledging that they were wrong earlier or had changed their mind. To me, this is a red flag that the person is a toxic person that you should avoid.
One woman I knew used the double-tongued technique to evade responsibility for mean things that she said. One time she said to me “you are not an empathetic person”. In response, I told her that I do think that I am an empathetic person, to which she replied “Oh, everybody who is unempathetic thinks that they are an empathetic person”. I found these words to be hurtful. Then later on, she seemed to have realized how wrong it was what she said to me; but rather than admitting that she was wrong, she said “well that was a nice empathetic thing to do”. Essentially she gave me a compliment that contradicted what she said before, and without acknowledging that she was wrong before or that she changed her mind.
Sometimes characters on television can be double-tongued. Meanwhile, we as the audience are enticed to laugh at how devious they are. In reality, we should not find this to be funny at all. It is a toxic and destructive behavior that bad people exhibit.
“I don’t remember”
When you decide to confront someone for something mean that he/she did to you, it is best to get the dirty deed done as soon as possible. The reason is that some wrongdoers will try to evade responsibility for their bad behaviors by claiming that they “don’t remember”. Are they telling the truth? Maybe and maybe not.
Generally when someone gets hurt by another person’s actions, the one who got hurt will, I figure, more readily remember the incident than the one who did the hurting. When the perpetrator forgets the incident, it is harder to hold him/her responsible.
“I was trying to protect you”
Sometimes when someone sabotages another, the saboteur claims that his/her actions were out of love and were for the purpose of protecting the other person. For example, let us say that a girl sabotages her friend’s chances at winning the favor of a boy at school by telling the boy that her friend has a venerial disease. Her friend is outraged and asks her why she would do this, to which she replies “I was trying to protect you. I do not think that he is nice, and I did not want your heart to be broken”. Meanwhile, the real reason that the girl did not want her friend to date this boy was that the boy had rejected her in the past, and she did not want to see her friend winning favor with a boy who had rejected her. It would have made her very jealous. By saying “I was trying to protect you” not only is she trying to come across as innocent and loving to her friend, but she is also rationalizing.
Another example: let us say a student submits an application to a very elite university, but his friend blocks the application from being sent out. He says he was just trying to protect his friend from the disappointment of rejection. His real motive, however, is to prevent his friend from succeeding in life and making him jealous.
“I am not perfect”
The statement “I am not perfect” is a statement that evildoers may use to try to make the other person feel as if he/she has unrealistic expectations for perfection (even though the other person perhaps is only expecting him/her to behave like a halfway decent human being). In certain contexts, the statement “I am not perfect” is used to undermine the other person’s complaints about the evildoer’s behavior, and manipulate the other person into accepting the evildoer’s “flaws”. Once again, this is an attempt by the evildoer to manipulate others into tolerating his/her behavior despite how destructive it is.
In reality, nobody is perfect. Therefore, acknowledging that one is not perfect does not distinguish one from any other person who has existed. The statement “I am not perfect” may be an attempt by the evildoer to prevent him/herself from being rightfully singled out as the doer of wrong, and instead be lumped in with everybody else.
Playing the game
One thing I find to be particularly disgusting is when evildoers make a game out of evading responsibility for their actions while making others look bad instead. Somtimes when you assert yourself and successfully reveal the evildoer’s bad deeds for what they are, the evildoer will have the gall to congratulate you on being sooooo good at playing the game. “You are really good at this” they say. What these evildoers may be trying to do is convince themselves that they look bad, not because they actually are bad, but because they are just not as good at winning an argument as you are.
Sometimes evildoers may sink so low as to accuse you of making this all into one big game, even though it is actually their game. According to their reasoning, you are winning the argument, so you must have had plenty of “practice”. In reality, you are winning because you stand for the truth and for what is right. You do not have to make things up as you go along. You have nothing to hide, they do.