"If I don't apologise first, they'll be angry"

Some of the reflex is defensive. You get the sorry in before the other person can be cross. The doorway sorry pre-empts the look. The email sorry pre-empts the irritation at being asked. The "sorry, can I just" in the meeting pre-empts the sense that you've taken the floor. The sorry is armour, and taking it off leaves you exposed to reactions you'd rather not have.

Look at what the pre-emptive sorry assumes. It assumes the other person was about to be angry. In the doorway, at the question, at the meeting contribution. Were they? In my observation, and this is the part that surprises people who try the method, the anger you're pre-empting almost never arrives, because it was never coming. The colleague wasn't going to be irritated by a question that's their job to answer. The room wasn't going to resent a contribution to a meeting that exists for contributions. The person in the doorway walked into you. The armour has been worn against an attack that was, on nearly every occasion, not going to happen, and the wearing of it has cost the trade from chapter 3 every time.

Kim and colleagues' finding from chapter 11 has a bearing here too. An apology tells the listener there's been a violation. So the pre-emptive sorry doesn't just fail to prevent anger. It suggests to the listener that there's something to be angry about, where a moment ago there wasn't. You've handed them a grievance, wrapped in an apology for it, and some people, handed a grievance, take it.

There's a version of this that's real and I want to name it. If you live or work with someone whose anger is quick and frightening, and the sorry is how you keep it from arriving, then the sorry is doing a job, and the job matters, and this book isn't the book for it. The preface said so. Nobody should take off armour they need. But most readers of this book aren't wearing it against a real threat. They're wearing it against a forecast, and the forecast is Savitsky's from chapter 10, which runs harsh, and the doorway was never going to hit back.

Try it once in a safe place. Ask a colleague you like a question with "quick one" instead of "sorry to bother you", and watch their face. Nothing will happen. That nothing is the anger that wasn't coming, and once you've seen it not come a dozen times, the armour starts to feel like what it is, which is weight.