We atone with fake apologies full of ifs, buts, sarcastic hashtags, flimsy rationales and all manner of responsibility-avoidant language and parenthetically dependent clauses that make the “sorry” virtually impossible to find (which is the intention).

These apathetic apologies are so embarrassing, you would think those of us who utter them would become so repulsed by our infantile behavior and lack of character that we’d have to stop in the middle of one and immediately (perhaps even sincerely) express shame and regret.

Sorry, but that’s not how we roll. Instead, every second of every day, members of my tribe of fauxpologists try to escape an uncomfortable truth about themselves or a difficult situation of their own making by making things worse with egregiously florid not-me mea culpas.

Many psychologists, like Harriet Lerner, author of “The Dance of Anger,” believe nonapologizers are made, not born.