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
Ohhh damn that’s why I read the whole thing. I usually scroll past walls of text in the comments.
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.
Or when they don’t really want an explanation and just want you to admit fault and ask for forgiveness.
I mean it boils down to “you better have a super good reason for this, cuz I expect you to take responsibility either way”
Nah, more often than not they don’t give a flying fuck about the reason when they say that.
Thats pretty reductive, mate.
Sure. And cynical. Yet true 99% of the time.
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
In reply to the meme: Anyone who asks why and then cuts off the person they asked immediately assumed that ANY response would be an excuse, since they didn’t listen to it.
They just want to be angry. They don’t care about anything else, and anything anyone says is irrelevant.
No, there’s one reason that they wouldn’t consider an excuse, and it’s what they expected you to say: “I’m a good for nothing stupid head”. That’s what they want to hear. They’re mad because you didn’t say it.
Excuses are generally made to avoid responsibility, and they aren’t always completely accurate. Explanations just clarify what happened.
The thing is, the person receiving an explanation might well just assume it’s an excuse, and it’s hard to convince them otherwise.
Yup, when it comes to intent only one person actually knows the intent and everyone else is assuming.
To add, justifications are the opposite of excuses, they are a reason for something that justifies it.
Excuse | Explanation | Justification
Yea, even when I explain something I did wrong, I make a point to mention it’s not an okay excuse and own my mistake. Then give ways I will avoid this problem I’m the future.
It’s this.
Good additions about justifications in this thread as well.
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
A reason is an explanation. An excuse is an attempt to shift responsibility.
Many people will create a disingenuous reason to absolve themselves of responsibility.
For instance, if someone sleeps in and leaves home 15 minutes late in the morning and arrives to work late, they may honestly say, “traffic was terrible on highway 7.” And while it’s true that if traffic had magically been nice that day they’d have made it on time, the honest reason they’re late is because they slept in. The traffic is their excuse.
While true, I think what the OP in the image is trying to say is that even if I give you a reason you say it’s an excuse when it wasn’t.
I think I’m neruotypical, but I’d get this all the time from my father. I’m not making an excuse, I’m not spinning anything to shift blame, I’m answering the question and their assumption is that I’m lying to shift blame.
Really the conversation in the image should be: why are you an asshole that can’t accept that shit happens. Like the following:
“why were you late?”
“I left on time, was walking down the hall, tripped and spilled something so I cleaned it up.”
“I don’t want your excuses!”
…well I don’t know how else to answer your question without simply explaining the facts of the situation…
Your father doesn’t understand the difference between a reason and an excuse.
Most people don’t. The issue is a lot of people ask the question, but have an answer already in their mind before they even asked. They don’t actually want an answer, they want to trap you and make you feel bad.
I just dealt with that yesterday to make sure my neighbors understood why my dog was making noise (super bad separation anxiety) and not that I thought any of that excuses howling and screeching.
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.
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.”
I always viewed the difference as intent and not mutually exclusive. reason explains your thought process, actions, and events. Excuse are reasons presented in a manor meant to shift responsibility.
Sounds like a rigged game: if someone wants to feel like the blame is being shifted.
What good is blame anyway if you want to fix the problem in the first place? I’ll never get it. It feels primally cathartic to blame a person, but it fixes the issues to find the reason.
Excuse are reasons presented in a manor
A country manor? Or ‘manor’ as in a Southern England English idiom for ‘house’?
Excuse are reasons presented in a manor
A country manor? Or ‘manor’ as in a Southern England English idiom for ‘house’?
Not autistic, but I teach people with mild cases of autism.
The “excuse” I most often hear is that they haven’t started doing the work they’re supposed to be doing, because they didn’t have their computer there.
That’s less of a reason and more of an excuse, because the solution is easy for these kids. “Go get the computer”. They know they can, and in fact often do.
The real reason is that they’d rather sit and chat with their friends instead of doing work (who doesn’t?), and if they were honest about that, I’d appreciate it a lot more.
Often, I guess you could equate an excuse to a “bad reason”.
A reason that you could have solved.
I mean, yeah, you’re not wrong.
And I do solve these all the time, but it’s his computer, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect he’d bring it when he realizes he needs it for his work?
The only reason I call it an “excuse” is because it’s not the real reason, or at least it isn’t the full reason. We know what the real reason is. He admits as much when we talk as well, and that’s fine.
I’m not some super strict and punishing teacher who looks for reasons (or excuses) to punish these kids. Rather, I try to talk to them and understand them, which is why I’m also here in this community :)
CONTINUED From SaphiraGrace’ response to @[email protected] below…world and society as a whole - you do not possess the required data or facts or lived experience to assign intent or reason to why a student doesn’t comply with a task or demand. You just don’t. And its not yours to assume.
Please, I know this is long. I am quite aware. (Yes, I will have a TLDR for reference here in a second) but it is fully necessary in response to such vapid ignorance and harmful assumption when it is so clear that you know very little about autism from a lived experience perspective. I get it. I’m not mad at you - just disappointed at how rampant such a take is in our society. So rampant that I have dedicated the rest of my life to educating those like yourself about what being autistic and neurodivergent really is like - and I will likely be doing such until I die.
Please find autistic voices to listen to. Autistic experiences to widen your understandably neurotypically-limited perspective. We need better understanding. We need better levels of empathy and care than we are currently receiving. We need better inclusion in society - not just surface-level, but inclusion that gives us a sense of truly belonging. We need those who don’t process and experience life the way we do to still give us a chance at living an authentic life without such a steep risk of burnout and stress that too often culminates in losing our lives to it.
If you would like some resources to learn more, please, DM me (this goes for anyone who has read through this mammoth of a post thus far and are also intrigued to know more). I have bookoos of them that I have collected and acquired through about half a decade or more of research and self-introspection. I am proverbial fount of information and I do not wish to keep all my knowledge and insight to myself - for having an outlet to share it is one of my few ways to safeguard myself from my own burnout and potential demise.
OK HERE WE GO! The TLDR:
From the top:
- Autism is a spectrum, not a gradient.
- Terms like “mild,” “moderate,” or “severe” autism are harmful and inaccurate.
- Language matters; it affects how autistic individuals are perceived and accommodated.
Spectrum vs. Gradient:
- Autism spectrum: A full color wheel with varying traits.
- Example: Hyper-verbal vs. nonverbal traits represented as different colors.
- Importance of understanding autism’s complexity and varied presentations.
Masking:
- Masking: Concealing autistic traits to appear neurotypical.
- Masking does not lessen the impact of being autistic.
- Examples of masking: concealing stimming behaviors due to external pressures.
Utilize a Better Approach to Educating:
- Do not assign reasons or intent without asking autistic individuals.
- Importance of directly communicating with autistic students to understand their actions.
- Examples of how assumptions can lead to misunderstandings and inadequate support.
Personal Experience:
- Autistic individuals may not know or articulate their needs due to lack of self-awareness or language.
- Importance of educators’ flexibility and willingness to accommodate neurodivergent students.
- Personal anecdotes to illustrate the challenges and needs of autistic individuals.
Call to Action:
- Greater understanding, empathy, and true inclusion are needed in society.
- Encouragement to learn from autistic voices and lived experiences.
- Offer to provide resources for those interested in learning more about autism.
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.
Edit: see comment below about fault and responsibility
but an admission of fault for something that wasn’t your fault is also bad
I think I should choose my words more carefully now that you say that. There is a difference between fault and responsibility, and it’s really more a matter of taking responsibility for things that are your responsibility.
So let’s say I leave home in a reasonable time to meet someone. However there are a series of car crashes on the way that cause traffic to back up. The accidents did not yet occur when I left my home, so I could not have accounted for them. My lateness is not my fault, because I did not cause the situation nor could I change or avoid it, but it is my responsibility to my (friend, date, boss, whoever) to call them and let them know my new estimated time of arrival. If I don’t try to let them know, they have every right to be angry with my for showing up an hour late, even though the lateness is not caused by my action or inaction.
When I get that line, I end the conversation. As politely as is just necessary.
I refuse to be scolded and lectured like a child, and if it’s a work setting, I would probably fire off a couple resumés that very evening.
I’m too old to demean myself in the workplace. I am of equal value as everyone else in the company, even if somemakeare paid more money and can assign tasks to me. That doesn’t make them higher-ups.So, preface - not neurotypical, but I dont really struggle with this sort of thing personally. At least I think so lol.
An excuse is a reason. One dictionary definition is “a reason that you give to explain why you did something wrong.” When you have done something wrong, people don’t usually want the reasons. They want contrition, or help resolving it. Also note another dictionary definition - “a false reason that you give to explain why you do something.” There is a perception that any reason given after doing something wrong may well be false, intended to deflect blame rather than genuinely explain. In general, there are times when it is appropriate to explain, and times when it is not.
It’s frustrating that someone would directly ask why you did something while not wanting an answer, but when people are stressed or frustrated - i.e. when something has gone wrong - they do sometimes just lash out with questions designed to accuse rather than to elicit an actual answer. The question: “why did you do it this way”, from someone who is angry, might really mean: “I’m angry with you because I can’t fathom what reason you could possibly have for doing it this way, now that it has gone wrong.” The solution isn’t to provide that answer, it’s to resolve whatever the problem is and let them calm down. There may come a point when explaining the reason is appropriate later.
Outside the specific context of the question - in general, if something bad happens as a result of your actions, explaining them isn’t the first thing you should do. First apologise, then try to resolve whatever the problem is. You can talk reasons later, it definitely can be helpful to understand how things went wrong… But only if you have the intention of trying to avoid it in the future. If you come off as trying to deflect blame… That’s going to be perceived as an excuse. Accept the blame first, and your reasons will be more likely accepted as an attempt to avoid future problems.
“Let me make you feel this way real quick…”
“No reply, just feel!”
It’s this. Anyone who asks you a question and then interrupts your reply was either trying to ask a rhetorical question (which is ambiguous for anyone in this scenario, neurodivergent or typical), or is acting in bad faith. You’re completely justified in feeling frustrated by it.
That question can be clear by tone, and by level of trust.
I’m a very curious person, so I want to understand what drove a decision (even if it was “I don’t know” or “Just seemed like the right answer”), and I want to understand someone’s approach to things - there’s lots to be learned that way.
But yea, quite often it’s a rhetorical, judgmental question.
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.
