Why does giving excuses anger people?

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I don't understand why giving excuses anger people. I thought that if I explain, other people would appreciate that I know what went wrong and I am trying to fix it. My parents told me that I should just keep silent instead of giving excuses, but I do not understand how silence can be any better than giving excuses.

Can anyone explain this for me? Thank you.

I've had confusion with this myself. My wife always tells me to stop making excuses, when I'm not. I'm typically explaining what happened and what I did to try an fix it, but she always says they're excuses. Whether they're excuses or not, they're still valid in my eyes because they show that I tried to take action or something got in the way of my actions. The only time excuses shouldn't be valid is if they're actually hidden lies. "The dog ate my homework" kind of excuses. I've always felt that keeping silent makes me feel like the bad guy in the situation, like I'm guilty of something that I had no control over.

I give reasons...

I will give reasons as well, although, I find I rarely do, anymore, as they come across as excuses to some people, and I don't want to be viewed as that. Perhaps, because I have an aversion to people who dont take responsibility for their actions. There is a major difference, however, in giving a reason for something, and making an excuse. If a person or a situation is important to me, I try to work through things until a resolution comes about. I often, introspect, and try to understand where I may have gone wrong, or, if I had, at all. I may express my understanding of the way I have added to a conflict, and take responsibility for my actions. I will feel grateful for the newfound knowledge I possess and will think of ways I can implement it, going forward, but, some people aren't interested in trying to understand. I understand your frustration, ryuunosuke. Can you, perhaps, try to explain to your parents that you are giving them valid reasons, and not making excuses? Perhaps they just need the idea of this, put in front of them, and will understand, and take a different perspective.

Let's face it ... people are shallow and don't want to hear reasons
or anything else that might cause them to think and have to change their minds
about who's right and who's wrong ..
especially when they think they're right ...
or about how they might have to change something in their life
based on what you say, to make things better for you,
when they're quite comfortable enough as it is
and want things to stay as they are.

So guess what?
There's a club event this year that I don't want to attend.
At first, I made the mistake of giving reasons.
And the guy in charge then tried to guilt me into going.
So now that some time has passed,
I simply wrote a friendly e-mail about many nice, pleasant topics ...
and slipped into the e-mail I wrote something to the effect of,
"I will not be available to attend the event this year."

And guess what?
That was the right way to handle it.

Because the response I got back was something like,
"That's okay, we should get someone else to do it this year."

So sometimes, you just have to tell people the way it is.
Don't give them a reason.
Reasons often aren't appreciated or respected anyways,
... and really, do they deserve them?

...

I agree with you. Maybe all that can be done is to offer evidence showing that the excuse is genuine. But often there is no hard evidence, and then it's a matter of whether or not they're prepared to trust you. It's possible that some good might be done by pointing out that they don't trust you, that they're essentially calling you a liar. I'm afraid some people will even dishonestly feign disbelief just to dominate. Nonetheless, sometimes a person might just be temporarily upset about an accidental thing that you innocently had a hand in, and if you just let it go for a while they might calm down and then reassure you that they didn't mean to paint you as the villain of the piece. That's the time to offer your explanations and to check whether they really feel you're to blame. So I think it's important to be aware of the context of an apparent shaming session. I think if you watch somebody carefully over the long term, it'll usually become apparent whether they're just trying to be top dog or just being human and screwing up now and then. It's very difficult, some people are like broken records with this "it wasn't my fault" thing, others are like broken records with this "it's all your fault" thing. It seems there's not enough grace and serenity to go round.

I think it really just comes down to people not wanting that much information about it, or they think you're trying to justify it...where they would prefer you just recognize the mistake and try not to repeat it. Like the other day me and my brother got in a bit of an argument over there being no coffee when he got up after I had said there was some left....I said another room-mate could have some and assumed there would be some left or they'd make more so didn't mention for them to make more if they took the last. But yeah my brother got up and was frusterated there was no coffee and when I could have just said 'oh I'm sorry I'll make you some more.' but I was too busy trying to explain what happened which just upset him more. Poor guy just wanted some coffee not tons of reasons why there wasn't coffee.

So I think a lot of times it comes down to too much information particularly if the person is already frustrated about the situation.

Excuses are a waste of my time.

If you can't do something or won't, that is all I need to know. The zillion and a half reasons are not relevant. I don't care about your past history, your SO screamed at you, or today was a bad day with cramps.

My husband does this all.the.time. He didn't do whatever action, now he's gonna burn up more of my time with a 45 minute dissertation of why he couldn't do (x).

I'd rather have a "sorry, I couldn't do it." The majority of the time is his executive functioning skills are s**t, and he just couldn't do the task. That is real reason for being unable to get it together and take the trash out. I get it. I accept doing things in a timely fashion is almost impossible for him.

Like the PP said. Too much information, and the other person is frustrated or resigned and just wants to move on.

I was kind of assuming that the OP's wife had been accusing him of this and that, or had been saying things like "why did / didn't you do (x)?" OP?
EDIT: Sorry, I meant LittleLu's wife.

I believe what Tawaki said echoes my wife's thoughts. She feels that excuses are a waste of time and she wants the bare facts or singular reasons behind an action. She doesn't care about me dallying around trying to tell her what had happened. And I think a lot of people are like that. I won't say just NTs though, because my wife is no NT. XD (She has Borderline Personality Disorder. Don't ask how we managed to stay together so long, lol. It's a rollercoaster at our house.) She's the "cut the crap and get straight to the point" type, which is hard on me sometimes because I'm highly sensitive to details.

For me, the "excuse" is often something like "I forgot to do that" or "I didn't know I'm not supposed to do that. I won't do it again". How would those anger people?

It is not about the excuse or reason.

It is the absence of responsibility or accountability that causes anger.

I have this issue too. When I've done something wrong I always want to explain why it happened so I can work out how to avoid it happening again and assure the other person I will deal with it. It's like a process I go through to figure it all out. Maybe for NT people they read this as excuses but actually from some of us ASD folks it's a demonstration of taking responsibility. If that's true then I guess this phenomina is just a disconnect between the way two different minds read a situation.

Thanks for the explanation. I suppose it somebody is truly that non-judgemental and uncomplaining, then to give reasons and excuses might be rather a waste of time. Me, if somebody's behaviour has bothered me, I like to know why they did it. I'm very unlikely to lose patience with their explanations, as long as they're reasonably clear and seem honest, I like to know how my friends tick.

I don't think this is exclusively to NTs, many people including aspies feel this way when one wants to give a reason for something they did. I also want to give out reasons but I often feel other people will just see it as an excuse or justification. How many times have I heard "I'm sorry but..." not being a real apology? Even aspies here have expressed how it's not a real apology and the person just wants to justify what they did. I understand the OP wasn't saying it's NTs that do it because he did say people meaning anyone.

'Tis not so much the "excuse" itself that triggers anger as it is that one's levels of perceived efforts or laziness might be issue. People who are adults, especially when they own a house or two, absolutely should not make a daily pig's sty mess of their home, and claiming to be too busy with other things is actually a very bad excuse.