You have to do that, to forgive people? Usually I blame circumstances, or I blame things going on in the person's life. You don't have to lie to yourself to forgive someone.
But I dunno. My definition of "forgiveness" includes, for example, letting go of grudges by realizing that the person is an insufferable jerk to everyone and not just me. In other words, it's not personal. So I can still commiserate with other people about how much of a jerk that person is, and I can still talk about the wrongs they did to me, but I don't have to hold that grudge anymore. I can detach myself from it.
What if they aren't insufferable jerks? What if it is personal?
What's funny is, I detach myself too, but not by letting them off the hook; that would be a lie to me also. I detach by letting
myself off the hook; I don't need to worry about them anymore because they're out of my life. They don't deserve my forgiveness, nor my emotional energy.
You can be reminded of the person. Maybe Facebook stalk them, or hear about them from other people. Either way, moments when the person comes up again and you realize that you don't have closure with them are inevitable. (For example, I thought I was free of one of my grudges when we went to different colleges, but now she works at my favorite bookstore back at home. C'est la vie!)
kdude said:
Yeah, the best thing I can think of is just moving on and ignoring some person. But if they were brought up somehow or showed up, I'm still in the same state it was left at. I don't have it in me to be the person that's suddenly cool with them. Sometimes I'll remind them or some cases, just do something that purposely unsettles them. I can try something else, but I feel better doing it my way.
In instances I am reminded of these people or even run into them, I don't feel an active grudge, but I am definitely not "cool" with them. I could never be friends with them again; or at least, not without an apology. This might just be semantics, but in my mind, I am no longer actively upset or cultivating bad feeling against them, but I am not open to them in a positive way either.
The best comparison I can make is grieving. If someone you love dies, at a certain point, you stop grieving. You might still miss them when you think of them from time to time, but the sharp pain is gone. You're not actively grieving them anymore.
This is how I feel about people who've wronged me seriously & given me no apology. It's like they're dead to me, and I've stopped grieving them.