A Momentary Lapse in Judgement

A friend of mine recently had a momentary lapse in judgement.

This lapse in judgement has meant I have spent quite a lot of time apologising to people.

My friend created a stupid (and strange and definitely not funny) comment in an email, and hit 'reply all' instead of 'reply'.

In fairness I wouldn't have thought much of the comment had he just hit reply.
Unfortunately by hitting 'reply all' he sent his stupid comment to nearly my entire personal address book (including my 80 year old Mum, people who work for me and some acquaintances as well as close friends).

And although the consequences of this have been difficult, challenging and emotionally draining, it has got me thinking.

This really bothered me, but when I tried to explain this to my friend, he said sorry, but I could see that he didn't really understand (or seem to really care) why I was upset or bothered.

Most people I know live by the motto 'do as you would be done by'. And that's the thing. If I had done to my friend what he did to me 3 things would have happened:

1. I would be mortified

2. I would have apologised - profusely to him and everybody else affected

3. He would have been really angry


So why doesn't he get it - he is an old and close friend, who I know would be up in arms if someone else had done this to me...Has my friendship become something that is such a constant that it's now taken for granted?


So what has happened - I had a couple of sleepless nights, I was angry and quite emotional and said quite a lot of bad words. I spoke to him on the phone and asked him to send an apology out but didn't say the bad words to him. A day later he sent an apology. I tried to tell him how I really felt but did it in such a way that he probably thought it was OK.

So who am I really angry at?

Me, I should have told him how upset he had made me, and all the real consequences of his actions.
Now what?

Probably nothing, we will just move one and I will tuck it away. Let’s hope all these things I tuck away don't make me explode one day.