Almost every female Miami University student reports that they are sorry. Not for anything in particular, most of them were quick to clarify -- just in general.
Sophomore Sophie Jackson, along with two of her friends, attributed their inexplicable urge to apologize for everything to their polite, Midwestern upbringings.
"Actually," Jackson said, "That's bullshit. It's just because I'm a woman."
When a male student seated at the table next to her in Armstrong leaned over to interject, she told him he was wrong.
"Sorry," she promptly apologized, wondering if maybe she had expressed her opinion when he hadn't explicitly asked for it.
Sophomore Christian Lopez said he was unsure why his girlfriend "is always, like, apologizing for everything."
"The other day, I spilled coffee all over her stats homework," Lopez said. "And she apologized for having it out on the table."
Taylor attempted to justify the apology, saying that she felt as though it was her fault for leaving her homework in a coffee-spillable zone.
"First of all, what does that even mean?" Lopez asked, perplexed. Then, when addressing his girlfriend, said, "The only thing you have to apologize for is apologizing too much."
Paul Martinez, Jackson's business legal studies professor, and Andrea Taylor, her Spanish professor, were both also confounded as to why she -- and all their other female students -- feel compelled to apologize for everything.
"Why doesn't she just issue a blanket apology on social media to everyone she's ever met?" Taylor said. "She can re-share it daily."
"It would save her a lot of time," Martinez added.
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Jackson and her friend Skylar Thomas defended themselves; Jackson said she realizes the constant apologizing is "probably annoying as hell," but that 20 years in, she's unsure how to stop.
"Whether it's for something I actually did," said Jackson, "like forget to take my clothes out of the dryer again, or for something completely out of my control, like that freak thunderstorm yesterday, just know that I am sorry for everything."
Thomas remembered one night when she and Jackson went Uptown, and a classmate from their business legal studies course bought them each a drink.
Thomas responded with a confused, "Wait...are you sure?"
Their classmate, Bobby Wright, shrugged.
"Yeah my buddy's working the bar tonight, it's no big deal," he said.
Thomas turned to Taylor with a smile and immediately apologized to Wright.
"Sorry for her," Jackson added.
"Sorry," Thomas said, when her friend pointed out that she seemed to be apologizing a lot.
daviskn3@miamioh.edu
doyleca3@miamioh.edu
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