It’s an excuse when they’re mad and a reason when they’re not
<not autistic person>
The way I use those words:
A reason is a cause for an event or a thought process that caused a decision.
An excuse is one of:
- a true reason why a person did a bad thing
- an explanation (true or false) why the cause of events or decisions was somebody else’s actions, not the speaker’s actions
- an explanation (true or false) pretending to be a reason, that isn’t actually the true cause of the event or decision
If I said, “don’t give me any of your excuses” to somebody, I would be meaning all of:
- something bad happened and I think it’s your fault
- I want you to agree with me that it’s your fault and accept blame
- I think you have a pattern of not seeing (or not admitting) that your actions cause bad things, and that’s happening again now
This is a bunch of very negative stuff to be meaning. It could be whoever said that is an asshole, blind, or unfair. If they treat everybody with negative shit like this that’s likely and there’s just no winning with such a person.
I actually have said stuff like “don’t give me excuses” to my kids. I think I’m not an asshole. When I said it, I thought my kid was flailing about doing dumb shit without thinking. What I meant for my kid was, “I want for you to start thinking about how a chain of events fits together, and I want you to accept you have the ability and the responsibility to see a bad outcome forming, and to take actions to make a better outcome instead.”
excuses lend themselves to lengthy explanations. reasons are more succinct and pertinent
They never wanted a real answer. Just to flex their tiny portion of power over you.
When someone talks they’re telling you something about themselves, not about you. They might be telling you what they think about you, but that’s something they think, not something you are.
In this case there are two things going on. One is the reason vs excuse, which is a blurry line vaguely separated by accountability and how much control you had over the situation.
The second and most important is that your boss is telling you he’s an asshole who is more interested in making you feel bad than salvaging this situation and improving on the future.
That’s the difference between nt and nd. Most nts will pick up on the fact that the boss is an asshole and there was never a correct answer. Nds on the other hand are more likely to internalize the situation wondering what they did wrong and how to improve future outcomes because they assume the criticism was honest and well reasoned and that there was a correct response.
The expectation of honest and productive exchange is unfortunately something assholes often abuse to bully neurodivergent individuals.
Excuses are “this is why I’m not at fault” and places the blame on someone or something else (including a circumstance). A reason is “this is why it happened” without trying to self-justify. A lot times reasons come across as excuses because the person has not taken responsibility for what they’ve done.
If a reason doesn’t come with ownership of fault, it’s an excuse.
but an admission of fault for something that wasn’t your fault is also bad
It’s not a neurotypical thing, it’s an asshole thing.
“Go fuck yourself” is probably the response you’re looking for. Or maybe just ending the conversation.
Because it is not a question. They are not asking for information. They are complaining about your work by recriminating you. Like a rethoric question where the answer is “because you’re stupid”.
they are inv asking for information
Every excuse is a reason, but not every reason is an excuse.
There are genuine good reasons for things not going as planned. Like things being outside of your control.
But if it was inside your control, and you could definitely have made it go as planned, but you didn’t. Then your reason is an excuse.
Holy crap I feel seen! I always wondered this also!
It’s a problem even for those of us who are neurotypical (my son is not which is why I follow this community also, so as he gets older I can understand better).
But as someone said, bosses especially will say this and they really just want you to say it was your fault.
In my mind, the difference is if you are excusing the behavior.
“I’m sorry I’m late, I missed my alarm” is an explanation because I’m not excusing the behavior, just explaining.
“I’m late because my alarm didn’t go off” is an excuse because I’m asking to excuse the behavior.
That said, excuses seem to have this bad reputation as being just a reason for laziness, but they really shouldn’t as they can be valid.
Example, my work requires 2FA to log in, which I get via a text. I use a local carrier and “our vendor who handles texting went down”. In that sense, that was my excuse for being late getting logged in - and it wasn’t laziness.
If they ask for an explanation and complain about being given an excuse, then they don’t want to hear the series of events which occurred. They want to hear which of your character flaws is responsible and that you’re ashamed of that flaw.
Source: drag speaks fluent neurotypical
An excuse removes responsibility.
A reason does not.
“You are excused” means you no longer are responsible for the outcome.
“I literally wasn’t present when it happened, so I’m not responsible for the outcome” < excuse, which can be valid
“I knew what was going to happen, here is why I did it for a good reason” < reason
Example: three kids are present, 2 are graffiti’ing the back of a house
When caught, 1 kid says “I was trying to stop them, they wouldn’t listen”. This is an excuse, they’re claiming they aren’t at fault and not responsible for the graffiti.
Another says “the home owner deserved it, he’s an asshole”, this is a reason as they are clearly not avoiding responsibility.
When you try and use an excuse to get out of something thar you clearly are responsible for, that’s when you will get served the “I dont want an excuse” line.
Not only was this well explained, but the short segments are great for my ADHD-phobia of large blocks of text
This exchange centers on excuse vs explanation.
An excuse intends to justify or remove blame.
An explanation simply retells the events without motivation or justification.
If someone ever says “I don’t want your excuse” simply reply “I’m explaining what happened without excusing anything. Would you like to hear that?”
If someone ever says “I don’t want your excuse” simply reply “I’m explaining what happened without excusing anything. Would you like to hear that?”
That never worked for me. The “I don’t want your excuses” types were never looking for an answer they just wanted to be dicks.
Trying to further explain like in your quote above always produced “that’s just more excuses!” or, “don’t talk back to me” or “likely story…” or, “don’t be a smartass!”
All bullshit. There are reasonable people out there but those who ask a question then berate the person they asked for answering (or for refusing to answer, when they already know the outcome) are just assholes who today will lose both my respect and attention.
Let me tell you a few secrets
First, anger uses up social energy. They get it back from your response to them… If you don’t let them read any emotion from you, they’ll tire themselves out very quickly.
You just have to control your body language, keep your tone calm, and let them talk. Make it clear you’re paying attention to them, but otherwise give them nothing
You don’t have to listen to what they say, they’re just making angry human noises. Just listen to their tone, it’ll rise and fall in energy cyclically until they run out of energy
When they stop talking, just give them a few moments of silence so they can feel embarrassed, then disregard their little temper tantrum and progress the conversation like it never happened, focusing on solutions
And that’s the second secret - you can prompt-break a human. In every interaction, humans take on roles. Customer-employee, public official-citizen, manager-worker… Humans naturally fall into roles
You can pull a human out of their role by not playing your part, and in that moment of confusion you can recontectualize the interaction
In this case, you change the conversation roles from “you being mad at me” to “I’m the expert helping you fix your problem”
Obviously, if you just say that, people will generally just get more upset. But if you pull them off balance and start acting a new role, they’ll take on the counterpart role
It’s all third path conflict resolution, it’s honestly harder to explain then it is to do it
If they say anything like that, just say “alright I’m gonna get back to work, cya” and quickly disengage. If they say like “we aren’t done here” reply as professionally as possible to the effect of: “I was describing the events as plainly as possible. You don’t seem to want that and this disagreement isn’t helping me do my job. If you want the facts I have them.”
If you are in an adult situation, don’t allow someone to treat you like a child. Even if you’ve made a mistake.
That said, not sure if I mentioned it in this thread or another, but if you are in a weakened position, like you desperately need the job, then the only response is “yes sir, sorry it happened.”
It’s not just you, neurotypicals on the receiving end of that hate it too. Everyone gets told that garbage line once in a while. It’s always said by someone on a power trip, they’re trying to put you down into a place beneath them
