If you’ve offended me, don’t say good morning to me. Don’t say hello. Don’t say hi when you haven’t said sorry.
And I remember thinking, I’m staying away from this one.
Because I had thoughts. Plenty of them.
But here we are. Monday Motivation. Let’s talk.
My own version is slightly different.
If you’ve offended me, you can say hello. You can say hi. You can ask me how I am. I’ll probably answer you too.
But until you acknowledge what happened and apologise?
Everything else is blah, blah, blah.
You can say good morning.
Blah.
You can ask how my weekend was.
Blah.
You can start a completely unrelated conversation as though nothing happened.
Blah, blah and more blah.
Because there is an unresolved issue sitting between us, and pretending it isn’t there doesn’t make it disappear.
Friendship Is a Safe Place for Me
I think part of the reason I feel so strongly about this is because friendship is incredibly important to me.
Friendship, for me, should feel safe.
I should feel like I can rely on you. I should be able to trust you. I should feel comfortable being vulnerable with you. I should be able to be an open book without constantly wondering whether the things I share with you will eventually be used against me.
And any friendship that cannot give me that safety?
I don’t want to be there.
It’s that simple.
This is also why I take my time with friendship.
People who don’t know me sometimes interpret that differently. She’s proud. She’s arrogant. She doesn’t talk.
No.
I’m simply not somebody who meets you today and immediately hands you access to every part of me.
I take my time.
Because when I’m invested, I’m invested.
When I care about you, I genuinely care about you. I don’t really know how to do these things halfway. With me, there isn’t much middle ground. When I love, care, support or show up, I show up properly.
And because I know that about myself, I am careful about who I give that version of myself to.
I need to know that you can hold it.
But here’s the other side of that:
I can also walk away.
Sometimes, Before You Blame the Person Who Left, Check Yourself
We talk a lot about people walking away.
“She ghosted me.”
“He stopped talking to me.”
“My friend just disappeared.”
“They cut me off for no reason.”
And sometimes, absolutely, people do disappear without explanation. Sometimes someone else’s inability to communicate has nothing to do with you.
But can we admit something uncomfortable?
Sometimes there was a reason.
Sometimes the person who walked away wasn’t the villain in the story.
Sometimes, you were the problem.
And I think occasionally we need to step outside ourselves and look at situations from another perspective.
What happened before they stopped calling?
What did they tell you bothered them?
What did you dismiss?
How many times did they try to explain themselves?
What did you refuse to take accountability for?
Because I genuinely struggle to understand how you can know you’ve offended someone and simply… move on.
You know they’re hurt.
You know something happened.
But instead of addressing it, you decide that enough time has passed and suddenly you’re saying:
“Heyyy, how are you?”
How am I?
😂
There is an entire offence sitting on the table between us.
Saying Sorry Will Not Make You Smaller
This is the part that gets me.
Why is apologising so difficult?
Why can’t you simply say:
I’m sorry. I can see that what I did hurt you. That wasn’t my intention, but I understand how it landed, and I’m sorry.
That’s it.
It will not kill you.
It will not make you smaller.
It will not remove anything from you.
It doesn’t mean the other person is better than you.
It means you are mature enough to recognise that your actions affected another human being.
And yes, sometimes you didn’t mean it.
But intent doesn’t magically erase impact.
Sometimes you genuinely meant well and it still landed badly.
Own it.
And This Isn’t Just About Friendship
Accountability matters everywhere.
In marriages.
In friendships.
In families.
At work.
In business.
And especially with our children.
I will never understand the idea that because you’re the parent, you cannot apologise to your child.
If you handled something badly, say sorry.
You shouted when you shouldn’t have? Apologise.
You misunderstood them? Apologise.
You accused them unfairly? Apologise.
Being the parent doesn’t automatically make you right.
The same thing applies at work.
Perhaps you misunderstood a colleague. Perhaps you took something out of context. Perhaps someone worked incredibly hard on a project and instead of acknowledging what they did well, you spent the entire conversation criticising them.
And then you expect everything to carry on normally.
Why?
If you handled something badly, acknowledge it.
It’s really not complicated.
Be Accountable
I actually cannot believe I have come on this blog on a Monday to write:
Be accountable.
Wow.
Just wow.
But apparently, here we are.
So yes, if you’ve offended me, you can absolutely say hello.
I’ll say hello back.
You can say hi.
I’ll say hi back.
And then I’ll keep moving.
Because politeness does not equal reconciliation.
Me responding to your greeting doesn’t mean the issue disappeared.
And there is no version of my life where I’m going to repeatedly allow someone to disrespect me simply because they don’t have the humility to acknowledge when they’ve done something wrong.
The funny thing is, I can forgive almost anything.
I genuinely can.
But accountability comes first.
And I think that’s true for more people than we realise.
Someone may tolerate the lack of apology today.
They may overlook it tomorrow.
They may even convince themselves that keeping the peace is more important.
But eventually?
One day, they may dust their shoes and leave.
And then you’re sitting there wondering why another friendship ended.
Why nobody seems to stay.
Why you don’t have close friends.
Why people keep distancing themselves from you.
At some point, instead of examining everybody who left, perhaps you need to examine the one person who was present in every single one of those relationships:
You.
Check yourself.
Were you accountable?
Could you admit when you were wrong?
Could you apologise without adding “but”?
Could someone tell you that you hurt them without you immediately explaining why they shouldn’t be hurt?
Could you listen?
Could you repair?
Because sometimes maintaining relationships isn’t about never getting things wrong.
We are human. We will get things wrong.
It’s about what you do after you get it wrong.
So this Monday, maybe that’s the motivation.
Not “cut everybody off.”
Not “protect your peace” at every minor inconvenience.
Not “match their energy.”
Something much simpler.
Learn to say sorry.
Learn to acknowledge when you’ve hurt somebody.
Learn to repair what you’ve damaged.
Learn to be accountable.
And if you’re constantly wondering why people keep walking away from you, maybe, just maybe, before making them the villain…
check yourself.
-A
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