The grammar that gives it away
Real apologies center on what the person did — 'I'm sorry I did X.' Fauxpologies center on the other person's reaction instead — 'I'm sorry you felt X' — which quietly relocates the problem from the behavior to your sensitivity.
Why it's worse than no apology at all, in some ways
A fauxpology can feel like it's supposed to resolve the issue, which can make you feel like you're being unreasonable for still being upset — at least silence doesn't come with the added pressure to act like something was actually repaired.
The conditional version, which is especially common
'I'm sorry if I did something wrong' keeps the actual wrongdoing hypothetical, letting someone sound contrite without confirming that anything happened at all — it's accountability with an escape hatch built in.
What an actual apology includes instead
Naming the specific action, acknowledging its impact without minimizing it, and not pairing it with a 'but' that shifts blame back — all three parts tend to be present in a real apology, and their absence is usually easy to spot once you're listening for it.
Noticing the difference isn't about rejecting every imperfect apology — people are allowed to be clumsy with words. It's about noticing a repeated pattern of apologies that never actually name or own anything.
Recognizing the pattern in general helps. Naming what an actual apology for the last incident would need to say is the harder, more useful thing to look at. Write that apology, in OLENRI