The Particular Pain of the Misdirected Apology

With insincere regrets to Neil Gaiman

Like many of us, I’ve read about the allegations against Neil Gaiman, and read his response. I’ve also read Julia Raeside’s excellent, furious parody of his statement, which I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it. I’ve never met Neil Gaiman, but I feel I get a sense of his character from one line in his statement which sticks out like a thorn: ‘I was emotionally unavailable while being sexually available, self-focused and not as thoughtful as I could or should have been.’ It’s the part that comes closest to being an apology. So why is it so infuriating? I think it’s because he’s chosen to apologise for being emotionally unavailable. As far as I can see, that’s not what any of his accusers have accused him of. They’ve accused him of sexual assault, which the last time I looked is very different to being emotionally unavailable.

Much has been said about the total non-apology (‘I’m sorry if you felt that way’). But what about the apology that’s straightforwardly offered, but for the wrong thing?

“I left my dog in your care and all you bring me back is this charred collar?!”

“I’m so sorry - I should have taken the collar off before I put him in the oven.”

I received a misdirected apology myself once, in different circumstances. I’d recently ended a relationship that I was only belatedly understanding was emotionally abusive. I got a message from my ex, saying he wanted to send me an apology. An apology – oh joy! The offer was horribly tempting. At that vulnerable time, an apology was what I wanted most of all. I naively thought it would consist of exactly what I wanted to hear, what we all want to hear after a break-up: An acknowledgement that absolutely everything was their fault and absolutely none of it was ours. I exaggerate of course, but I did think it might contain some glimmer of insight into how he’d treated me. So I said yes, thank you, send it over.

When the brief apology arrived, by email, confusingly a full two weeks later, it amounted to: Sorry I was a bit grumpy at that dinner a couple of nights before you broke up with me (I paraphrase). It was exquisitely upsetting. By apologising for a trivial thing, he’d taken control of the narrative. He’d managed to imply that I’d rashly ended our relationship because of one slightly tense evening, rather than the drip-drip erosion of my sense of self over two years of his manipulation, his Jekyll & Hyde volatility, and spinning his own chronic jealousy into my shame.

The non-apology is nakedly pathetic. But the misdirected apology is a subtler beast. It assumes the shape of genuine contrition, whilst hidden inside is self-absolution, or even self-congratulation. Neil Gaiman has chosen to define his own character flaw. Emotional unavailability: the foible of Mr Darcy, James Bond, Don Draper. How glamorous. If emotional detachment was the charge against him, we might even admire this troubled lone wolf for finding the strength to own up to it, for regretting the disappointment of those many women who’ve surely longed to access his emotions. But it’s beyond irrelevant. Because the thing he’s been accused of is sexual assault.

Gaiman states, ‘I will not admit to doing things I didn’t do’. No one’s asking you to. But in the meantime, spare us the apology for something else entirely. Because the misdirected apology is worse than no apology at all.

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