Agree with Brooker. And actually, I forgive even those that don't ask forgiveness. I forget, and it's very hard for me to maintain hard feelings towards anyone.
To me, it makes sense anyways, as forgiving is letting go of negative feelings towards someone. Anger isn't exactly a happy emotion, so to be living the exerience again in memory, one also relives the anger. Worse yet, is that people always try to justify their feelings. People start to look for supporting facts to justify their feelings. It's unobjective, and is detrimental to happiness, in the way that, humans for the most part can only focus on one thing at a time. So you are focused on anger? How can you then also be focused on that which could make you happy?
I do feel closer to someone who sincerely apologizes. Anyways, my Japanese wife often says, I don't say I'm sorry often enough. I give reasons for being late, but it's just not a conditioned response for me to say sorry.
The other thing I was wondering, is that once, I was doing a TV conference lesson, and couldn't get the camera to connect with theirs. I was late by 10 minutes, and apologized, saying, my apologies for being late, but I couldn't connect. The students later called my boss, and complained that I was late. My wife said, that by saying sorry, I was accepting responsibility for being late. Therefore, the students assumed it was completely my fault.
Anyone else have any similar experiences?