Yes, but in that dance when someone tells you "i realized i was horrible to you" there's this expectation that the next step is the wronged person saying "i forgive you", and if they don't want to forgive and soothe the bad person's (well-earned) guilt it means THEY aren't as noble/awesome/nice as they "should" be and that's maybe not as bad as the initial offense but still a disappointment.

I want Gaara to have a chance to say "I'll need to work real hard and for a long time to forgive you and I'm not even 100% sure I want to bother", but for a shounen manga it wouldn't make him a nuanced character, it would make him a Not Very Nice person. Since that's not going to happen in Shonen and Kishimoto won't explore those emotional nuances and stay with his Gaara Is A Prophet of Naruto Now themes, which makes this sideplot unnecessary for Gaara's character evolution (he's already at the top), I would have prefered it were never brought up. :/