Today is supposed to be a day to mend fences and get back in the good graces of someone you have upset. Once upon a time, this would have been like a religious holiday for me. I’ve made those attempts. I’ve reached out to people I wronged. Most of the time, I got blown off. I had one very satisfying reconciliation with a college friend when I was in my 30s, which was nice—and after which we never spoke again. Still, we can both die knowing that hatchet was buried.

Up until recently, I would have assumed that nobody likes being in the dog house, but life has shown me that there are people out there who are quite content to be out of favor with anyone and everyone. I have to assume this is because those people are aware of their surroundings and marching into that doghouse with their heads high and their eyes open.

I’m not generally part of that crowd. I mean, yeah, sometimes I do crummy things out of spite or malice. I tend to own those and apologize—later, if not sooner. But most times I end up in the dog house, I have blundered in there unwittingly and as a result have no idea how to get out until someone gives me detailed directions. I have always been this way. Honestly, I think it was more the confusion that distressed me than the actual negative treatment.

Having my parents for parents also gave me a weird relationship with the doghouse. When my mom got mad, she would blow a gasket and forget about it ten minutes later. When my dad was mad, he would seethe for hours or days before confronting the issue. I lived in mortal terror of upsetting either of them—not because they were mean, just because I hated them being mad at me. But I also watched how they interacted with each other, and I saw how my dad managed my mom, and I learned to apply his blend of anticipation, action, and occasional apology. I watched how my mom would notice my dad was sulking, ask once what his problem was, and then just go about her business and leave him alone until he was ready to discuss it.

I am told by those who know me well that all this made me into a pleaser personality. I wasn’t a total pushover, but I was the kid who found it incredibly distressing when people would be nice one day and pretend I didn’t exist the next. I was the teen who tried to remember everyone’s birthday and leave a nice note in their locker. I was the girlfriend who planned, I was the co-worker who baked.

What I find interesting is that I never really considered how other people felt about my putting them in the doghouse. When people didn’t thank me for the notes or boyfriends didn’t show up for dinner, or colleagues didn’t acknowledge that my cookies were a nice snack, I would get minorly (sometimes majorly) offended and stop delivering. On the rare occasions someone told me my brownies were “gross” or “fine, I guess,” I would first panic that I’d used salt instead of sugar and (despite knowing I hadn’t messed anything up) would taste them again to be sure. And when they tasted fine, I would apologize. I wish now that I hadn’t, since nothing was actually wrong, but I hated to disappoint anyone. But once I had apologized, I would also roll my eyes and make a note to exclude that person from future samplings. I wanted to be liked, I tried to be likable. But only up to a point.

For the most part, I’m not big on apology scenes. Say it if you need to (but mean it, none of this “I’m sorry you were offended” or I’m sorry but you are an idiot” noise), and do better going forward. My parents generally apologized to each other with deeds more than words; my dad would bring my mom a book she wanted or my mom would buy my dad the expensive scotch. I also watched my parents stand friendly but firm when they felt they had done nothing wrong. When a lady at the PTA made a face about my mom showing up for a meeting in jeans and a T-shirt, my mom didn’t bat an eye. She just said, “Well, I’m here for this completely inconvenient meeting; you can put me to work or send me home.” When I was on a date with my not-yet-husband and he said, “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke,” it was like coming home and reinforced my belief that we were meant to be.

And I’m finding that the doghouse can be an OK place to be as I get older. I try to follow Davy Crockett’s motto: Be sure you’re right, then go ahead. If I’m sure of myself, I’m OK with someone else not being OK with me. This was put to the test recently when someone I had considered a friend for years didn’t like something I wrote. Rather than asking me to explain or considering they might have misinterpreted or overreacted, they assumed the worst, declared my depiction ugly and hurtful, and apparently concluded that my soul was black as pitch. Now, here’s the thing. I know I can be an ass, so I checked myself, then I asked some relevant outside parties for their input on what I’d written, looked it over again, and concluded that not only is my soul just fine but also that what I had written was not the new Mein Kampf that this person seemed to think it. I said so. The other person Didn’t Know What to Think. Well, I did, and I ended the friendship. And my only irritation with the whole thing is that although the other party apparently had conviction, they lacked follow-through and made Mean Old Me pull the trigger. If I’m as loathsome as they apparently considered me to be, why on earth would they need time to think anything over rather than just go no-contact immediately? But I guess this way they get to say that their assumption was correct and I am ugly and hurtful because I chose to call it a day while they were willing to “think”—about what, I will never know.

So, sure. Despite having a big, thick strain of Pleaser Personality running through me, I have hit my limit and lost a few friends over the years. That’s fine. When it’s over, it’s over. I was more bothered when a person I thought was a good friend ghosted me; it still bothers me a little—again, that confusion versus negativity thing. But after attempts to reach out to her failed, and when various mutual friends seemed unable to tell me what I might have done to cause such offense, I eventually concluded that if she couldn’t be bothered to tell me what I did, I didn’t need to bother fretting about it. When I found myself pattering down that rabbit hole, I turned myself around and distracted myself by bothering someone who was willing to talk to me.

But hey, if you have a guilty conscience, today is the day to ease it. Maybe you’ll have a happy reconciliation. I hope you do!