At a luncheon with about 15 people, I blurted out something that could be hurtful to another person everyone at the table knows that person but he wasn't in attendance at the lunch. Should I let it go and forget it? Should I apologize to each person in attendance? Should I tell the person I said it about and ask for forgiveness? I don't want to make matters any worse.

This is what I did.. . I was sitting at the end of the table and couldn't exactly hear the going conversation -- just pieces of it. I heard that one of the ladies wanted to fix her sister up with a guy we all know. I asked the person next to me who they were talking about and she said. "Darrel" I thought she said Dale. I blurted out, "Don't even! He would not make a good husband."

Darrell is a good guy. So is Dale, for that matter, but my true opinion is that he wouldn't be a good husband but I should not have ever said that!

I am mortified at my tactless flub. What should I do?

At a luncheon with about 15 people, I blurted out something that could be hurtful to another person everyone at the table knows that person but he wasn't in attendance at the lunch. Should I let it go and forget it? Should I apologize to each person in attendance? Should I tell the person I said it about and ask for forgiveness from him? I don't want to make matters any worse.

This is what I did.. . I was sitting at the end of the table and couldn't exactly hear the going conversation -- just pieces of it. I heard that one of the ladies wanted to fix her sister up with a man we all know. I asked the person next to me who they were talking about and she said. "Darrel" I thought she said Dale. I blurted out, "Don't even! He would not make a good husband."

Darrell is a good guy. So is Dale, for that matter, but my true opinion is that he wouldn't be a good husband but I should not have ever said that!

I am mortified at my tactless flub. BTW, I am not a youngster that doesn't know better. I am a senior citizen with 'foot in mouth disease'. Is there something I can to to make it right with my friends.

This is a hard one.

On the one hand you don't really want to bring it up again and make matters worse.

On the other hand, with 15 people in attendance, is it likely that one of them will tell Dale what you said, or Darrel for that matter?

I would just tell everyone that you thought they were talking about someone else. Don't mention names, just claim ignorance. :)

If you said it out loud, in public to a group of 15 or more people, you must have believed it to be true, and did not care who knows is.

Rule of life, if you are ashamed to say it to a persons face, don't say it behind their back.

You owe the person you talked about an apology, not anyone at the lunchean.

I don't see this being a big issue.
Always best to come clean, if dale have issue's you could try to tell him about it, like help him?

Thank you. I have apologized to this man before (another matter) and it will be hard to do but if I must, I must. Thank you so much. In truth, I know he would not ever want to be married to me either! And that doesn't hurt my feelings at all.

I would love to do that. In truth, I AM ignorant or I would never have said what I did. It would also be true that I thought they were talking about someone else but I'm afraid they do know of whom I was speaking. Thank you so much for ryour answer.

Thanks ken, you make me feel much better about the whole thing.

I would drop it, personally - just let it go. Bringing it up to apologize will just guarantee it gets back to the guy, when otherwise people will probably forget about it.

You could tell one of the people at the table that you feel badly because you only caught a bit of the conversation and spoke out of turn, thinking they were talking about someone else. Hopefully the correction will make it's way through the gossip chain as well. If they ask "who did you think they were talking about" you can just reply, "I shouldn't have said anything about him, either, but I had in mind an ex of one of my friends, but in fairness, I only knew one side of the story so should have kept my mouth shut at any rate".

Everyone puts their foot in their mouth at times - it's not the end of the world.

Thank you. That is actually what I did. I ignored it. Well not fully. This is a man that has a ministry and I donated to his ministry without making a comment but it eased my mind. I do have an overactive guilt complex so I was making more of the incident that I needed to. Thank you for answering my question. You are not a "don't know nothin." :)