NASHVILLE, TN — An apology text sent Sunday evening by Derek Halloran, 38, of Nashville, required no external pressure, contained no grammatical hedging, and was followed by zero requests for forgiveness in return, leaving its recipient in a state of moderate psychological crisis that has now entered its fifth day.

The message, sent at 9:14 p.m. to childhood friend Marcus Webb, 39, read in full: “Hey, I’ve been thinking about how I handled things at your wedding reception in 2019. I was selfish and it wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry. No response needed.” Webb immediately called his wife, then his mother, then checked Halloran’s LinkedIn for recent career changes.

“There’s no way that’s just an apology,” said Webb, who has screenshotted the message and shared it with four people for analysis. “Men don’t do that. Something happened to him. He’s either in a program, or he’s dying, or he found religion, and honestly those are all the same thing to me right now.”

“He didn’t even spell out what he wanted me to say back. That’s the most unsettling part. He left me completely without instructions.”

Halloran, who declined to elaborate beyond confirming the apology was genuine, has sent two additional unprompted apologies this month — one to a former coworker and one to a barista he was rude to in 2022 — sparking what mutual friends are calling “a full situational audit of everyone who knows him.”

At press time, Webb had drafted seven different responses to the text and deleted all of them, settling on a thumbs-up emoji he has not yet sent.