"I'm Sorry"... a sign of uncertainty?

Over the weekend, I was sitting with a bunch of other girls around a fireplace. One of the girls has this habit of saying "I'm sorry" all the time. She says this because she does not want to offend anyone with anything that she says. This habit has become such a part of her speech, that she says it even when it is not necessary at all to say "I'm sorry." It is interesting that a phrase that someone starts saying can defuse into the rest of her language, whether it fits or not. It is so easy for a phrase to become over used in our everyday speech. And when such a phrase is used so much, it begins to lose it's meaning.

We then started to talk about whether guys or girls say "I'm sorry" more. We determined that girls say "I'm sorry" a lot more often than guys say it. Thus we started to ponder on why this could be. It could just be that guys like to seem macho, and saying "I'm sorry" is a sign of weakness because that means that he messed up and did something wrong. It could also be that girls are more insecure and uncertain of what they say and where they stand on things. But saying "I'm sorry" with an opinion, it makes stating your opinion much safer. It is as if she is saying, "This is what I think, but its fine if you don't agree with me." It makes speaking safer because it protects your from offending anyone else. This follows what we were talking about in class last week. One of the differences between men and women speaking is that women tend to be more cautious about what they say. Women tend to be more inclusive. This example fits exactly into that point.