Anyone looking for someone with my background can find me.
That was always true. Now everyone who should know it does.
## The Specific Shape of Daniel’s Apology
People have asked me — or I imagine them asking me — what a real apology looks like in a situation like this. I want to describe what Daniel’s looked like, because I think the difference between an adequate apology and an inadequate one is worth understanding.
An inadequate apology, in this kind of situation, would have said: I am sorry for the confusion. I am sorry my family got the wrong impression. I should have explained things better. These are technically apologies, but they locate the problem in the abstract — in confusion, in impressions, in explanation — rather than in the speaker’s specific decisions.
What Daniel said, in the three-hour conversation and in subsequent ones, was closer to: I chose to tell my family you weren’t working because it was easier for me than explaining the actual situation. I maintained that story for eighteen months because correcting it would have been embarrassing and I prioritized my embarrassment over accuracy. I knew this was wrong and I continued anyway. I am sorry for those specific choices and their specific consequences for you.
The difference is that the specific version requires him to name what he did rather than what happened. What happened can be ambient and accidental; what he did was intentional and sustained. Naming it correctly is the beginning of being able to change it.