Dear Auntie Mac,

I made a mistake – I admit it. I said something I shouldn’t have and I apologized to the person I insulted. Immediately. She “accepted” my apology, also immediately. However, a year later she is still revisiting the incident in social gatherings in town. Relaying the circumstances, and my mistake, to everyone present. Again, I apologize. Publicly. Though I’m not keeping score, I think I’ve apologized at least seven times since the incident. Should I still feel guilty?
Very Sorry

My Dear Neighbor:

Upon reading your letter, Auntie Mac confesses to adjourning to the parlor, steadying herself on the divan, removing her hairpins (and they are legion), and racking her brain to imagine a scenario in which an incident that is now over a year old would be considered a still-intoxicating public anecdote, especially to the person who apparently was so irrevocably harmed. She is trying to imagine the scene—truly she is. A community picnic—Memorial Day, let us say. You are sitting at the pavilion with five or six other parade goers, nibbling on your potato salad, when the offended party passes by, notices you, and announces to the group, “See that one there? It’s a wonder they let her out in public. Do you know what she said to me last Memorial Day? I was getting my tractor ready for the parade and she walks up to me and asks, “Oh, are you one of the floats?” As Auntie Mac imagines this one of quite probably a thousand scenarios she could summon if given enough time and a strong pot of tea, several points come to mind, much like the errant hairpins she has forgotten to remove. Your narrative implies that this bit of over-the-top theater occurs when you are present; this person has a stake in your participation. While repetitive shaming may be the vehicle in which the incident is carried, the desired result is personal satisfaction: from seeing the reaction of citizens who perhaps have not heard the story before (by this time there can’t be too many of them), and from you, whose apologies may seem at this point rather Pavlovian. It also smacks of a need to control people and situations, by someone who has very little control elsewhere. (“I tell my story, I get not only objective sympathy, I get another apology. And who does not adore being apologized to, ad infinitum?”)

Lest Auntie Mac be accused of applying tools best left to the professionals, she will delve no further into the nooks and crannies of the aggrieved party’s belfry. She will venture to suggest, however, that your long-ago insult has turned into a sort of narcissistic ambrosia on which this person has been dining happily for far too long, at your expense.

One assumes that whatever the original offense, there are no further amends to be made. The incident is being kept alive by no one other than the victim of your momentary lapse in judgment. You may feel chastened, or humbled, or a year wiser, but this person is not responsible for your feelings of guilt. If you would like to continue to be manipulated by them each time you go out in public, then by all means exercise that prerogative. If you are finished, however, with your part in these public displays of attention-seeking, you could gently ask your nemesis what they need for some emotional closure (for that is most likely the term that would strike something approximating the right chord), and do your level best to comply. If the answer is along the lines of “Nothing! I will always carry this wound in my heart and must announce it whenever we are together in public!” then we can both see that whatever it was you said, dear, has paradoxically produced more benefit than pain to the injured party, in the manner that aspiring martyrs most cherish, and by which most of us are truly baffled. You may simply walk away and think no more about it.

Your Auntie Mac