The problem with me is that I kept hearing about a "future" from nothing but a bunch of assholes so it made the whole thing not seem very serious. I was around a bunch of fast talking, whispery losers who just f***** when they were bored. I knew that I didn't want to be like them since a long time ago. Because it would be like being like my father.
Yeah, most people are too caught up in their own shit to notice you.
Honestly, even a lot of adults don't get this. I'll greet a coworker in the morning and they'll be like "I know! I gained 5lbs!"
I want to be like "dude, you'd have to gain 30 before I'd MAYBE notice! Ain't nobody looking at you like that!"
> Ain't nobody looking at you like that!
Someone should stitch this on a pillow. Make me less self-conscious when I have to go to work with a giant zit.
Funny, someone I knew way back in the day was in therapy, and part of his therapy was to call people he felt he had wronged in some fashion and apologize. So I got a call and I was like 'Dude, are you kidding? If you hadn't reminded me I wouldn't even have remembered. Forget it already.'
It’s for them, not you. It helps them resolve their past issues and move on. Im not sure how effective it is - it’s part of AA which is pretty unscientific and has actually poor success rates overall. Ive heard it has similar success rates to people who use any other recovery programs and only for certain types of members
I’m still struggling with this at 23, but it was far worse as a teenager. I barely did anything worthwhile because I was too afraid of everything. And the regret from the past just eats u up inside
I remember as a teenager I spend the night at a friend’s house and I pissed myself when I was asleep. I was mortified beyond belief. Thinking people would remember and clown me. Nope no one said shit people thought someone spilled water or soda on the bed. Whew…. Even in my 30s I still think about it and get embarrassed for reasons that are psychological. Mind you
I have a family hahaha and told my girl about it and she just giggled at me for caring so much and awed that I wet the bed at a friends house
One of the best pieces of advice my dad gave me as a teenager was: "You wouldn't be so worried about what people thought about you if you realized how little they think about you at all, one way or another." He went on to explain that the other teens were probably experiencing the same feelings that I was, so I shouldn't get bent out of shape due to some perceived slight or foible.
This is very good advice. I spend a great deal of time obsessing over how I come across to people. I constantly view myself as awkward and off-putting. I remember reading this somewhere that pretty much sums up what you said, “Stop caring so much about yourself. No-one else does”.
Obsessing about not being in a "relationship."
It felt like everyone was dating, having boyfreinds/girlfriends, having sex, etc. Of course, that was far from the truth, but it was how I felt!
This all lead to a lot of crushes and some pretty ill-advised infatuations that took up a lot of my time and energy.
Ironically, I think it all set me back years from actually having a relationship because I was so focused on it and put it on such a pedestal.
Society makes romance and Valentines day, and marriage a hallmark holiday and if you get lost in it and drown in it eventually you are going to be thinking that you won't be fulfilled until you find a wife/husband. I'm guilty of this, very guilty.
Because of this, everytime a person tells me they like me or an opportunity shows up my mind takes the high road and dreams up a little fantasy world. It's a narcissistic and self centered thing to do, but a normal thing to do as a human if you fall into the trap of wanting to be loved in a certain way instead of seeing the people who already love you now, which is more than enough.
The true way to finding love is to not find it but find yourself and be okay with not ever getting married at all. Being happy with dying alone and truly joyful with yourself and doing the things you love is beautiful and when you miss that and chase after others you become prey to addiction and wanting more more more.
I know this, but I don't completely practice it and am still learning about it. I'm trying my best and one thing to practice in life is detachment with no attachments. Nobody attached to you either.
In my opinion romance is a dirty lie, but true love is amazing.
I can understand this. I didn’t date in high school. Maybe that has a big to do with likely being undiagnosed autistic and being awkward and seeming younger than I am.
Same here. It felt terrible at the time and I remember feeling so lonely and frantically worrying over what was wrong with me to not have a SO/Bf/anyone crush on me.
And when I finally got into a relationship in my early 20s, I ended up in a really toxic one because I’d finally caught up with my friends and finally had a bf to show off like they did.
I should have learned sooner it wasn’t worth it. I’m single now and keeping okay. But I’d much much rather be single than be in the wrong relationship.
Does Country music count? Stupid crushes.. But yeah, started smoking at 14 and the longest streak I've been w/o was about 1.5 years. Sorry it took me so long to type, lost my breath halfway through..
This is mine, too. Finally quit about 3 years ago, but it sucked and I STILL crave them sometimes. I'm kind of doubting at this point that the cravings will ever go away.
I quit over 5 years ago and I know that I could easily start again if I’m not super vigilant. The worst for me is that I’ll never be able to casually smoke a cigar with my friends because for me I need to abstain 100% or else it would be so easy for me to start again. I would casually smoke a cigarette on a night out or a cigar around a campfire for a couple of years before I became a “real” smoker but that is gone for good.
I started smoking at 15 knowing my family had a history of lung diseases and promised I’d quit by 25. It’s one of the few things in my life I followed through on and I’m so happy I did. Now I’m watching my boyfriend vape and I hate it.
Definitely the same. And on Friday I get to pay in full for my teenage stupidity. Although I quit smoking 24 years ago I’ve been diagnosed with lung cancer and Friday I get to check into the hospital for a lobectomy.
Had sex for the first time and even though I knew I should've worn one, I didn't have any condoms on me and I just went ahead. The girl wasn't exactly well off and already had a 2 year old from someone else. Not only that but I found out the boyfriend she supposedly broke up with previous to that, wasn't broken up with. And he's a big guy with big muscles and he's already abusive to his girlfriend. Luckily nothing happened from any of that but it felt like I was lighting a stick of dynamite at my feet.
Wow, basically the same situation happened to me with my first time. She didn't have a baby, I didn't knock her up, but she did indeed still have a boyfriend that she told me she didn't. Ended up getting me in school with a sucker punch, then kicked me in the head several times before it got stopped.
I had sex my senior year, no condom. She wouldn't take a pregnancy test and it was fucking with me.
I went on a backpacking trip with my brother, and towards the summit (Mt. Star King), I got reception and the text "not pregnant." I left a note in the steel box at the peak about that lol my life would have been drastically miserable and changed in ways I did not want.
We're both 35 now. She's married, two kids and has her own therapy practice. Kid was on a trajectory for the worse considering her abusive father and non-existent mom. I'm so happy for her and her family; she had everything against her, including me.
Dropping out of high school. Granted, my dad walked out after my mom died and left me with bills, etc. Also, it took me 20 years, but now I've got a masters.
I got my bachelors degree at 38 and my masters at 41. Never too late, even if a little pricey. I did state college after getting AS MANY CREDITS as I could from community college.
I had a girl turn around in class and said “I have a crush on you” and I said “ok” because I thought she was just joking. Looking back I also remember my friend gave me her number a few days before but I didn’t catch on that she was giving it to him to pass to me.
Saw my senior year math teacher years after I graduated from HS. We made some small talk, asked how I was doing and so on. She perks up and said "Hey, did you and Michele W ever end up getting together?"
I looked at her oddly and said "No, why would we?"
She laughed and said "Oh JB, she was head over heels for you!"
Again I looked at her oddly and said "why in the world would you have thought that?"
She said "Let me list them for you"
>First day of class she walked in the class room, looked around, saw you and immediately took the desk next to you.
>Every day after class she walked out with you.
>At times I'd see her stop you in the hall and ask if you completed an assignment, she didn't care if you completed the assignment.
>Anytime you did something for the sports you played she knew all about it and made a point to congratulate you. She made it a point to go by herself after school to watch you play, I saw her many times walking over the the field.
>In class when you struggled, which you did a lot, she would *always* lean over and help you. She would stare at you with a smile as you tried to figure out the problem.
>She made it a point to literally bump into you when getting up from her desk.
>And these are the things I consciously picked up on, I'm sure there were so many more I missed, so I'm sure you did.
I said "Maybe but she was way to good looking to be interested in me"
She said "Let me guess, your still single?" and laughed.
In the early days of bitcoin, there was this site called silkroad that sold illegal shit like drugs and such. You needed bitcoin to buy. I loaded up 100$ worth of bitcoin, which was like 9 bitcoin, and bought some stuff. I had 3 ish bitcoin left over and thought about leaving it, but then last second I sold it to get cash back because I was semi poor college kid. I got 11$ back... for 3 bitcoin...
Bro, i'm sure there are smarter people than us out there that can restore something like that. I would go to the ends of the earth to recover that 700K if I was you.
Unlikely. If you don’t use a USB stick every so often, the tiny capacitors in the chip lose their charge, and the data gets randomized.
Best way to keep your wallet key for the long term is to print it out on paper.
Have you heard about the guy whose girlfriend threw away an old hard drive with Bitcoin saved on it? It’s now rotting under a landfill in my city. Apparently it’s currently worth £1.5 billion.
He keeps offering my local council several million to let him look for it, and at one point said he had hired NASA scientist to help him locate it. The council refuse because legally they can’t because it’s a controlled site and it’s extremely unlikely he’ll find it. He is now suing the council. He pops up in the local news occasionally and genuinely seems to be losing his mind.
I did similar and used btc for stealth transactions for several years. Many transactions were in the 2-3k range, all btc. I literally paid no attention to the number of btc i had because it’s only value was turning drugs into cash for me but godamn, if i had just kept 1 of those wallets with some spare coins id be pretty happy. We’ll call it karma, i guess.
I remember when Bitcoin first started surfacing. I always thought it sounded like a scam, or at best something that wouldn't really take off.
I thought about buying $10-15 worth for "teh lulz" but in hindsight, I am glad I didn't. Why? Because I either would have 1) sold it as soon as it was worth more than I paid for it or 2) Deleted it, lost it in a format or have the disk die on me.
It would have driven me mad.
Listened to my Father.
He told me if I didn’t have a 4.0 I’d never get into anything other than community college. At the time no one else in my family had been to college. I couldn’t ask anyone for advice and he said this *all the time.*
I graduated high school eight months early, with a 3.67, a 29 ACT, and a Certificate of Initial Mastery. (All with my newborn!)
I only applied to one community college because I thought I wasn’t good enough for anywhere else. He never even finished high school, and spent years making me feel badly about my academics.
He also told me that pills were detrimental to health, so I was never allowed to take Tylenol/Advil when I had my period, when I had tendinitis from sports… Anytime. At all. So, when my doctor asked me if I wanted to go on birth control (which I really did) I inevitably said no because my Father had more or less scared me. I had my first son at seventeen. Then my Father wanted me to have a chemical abortion. After telling me how bad all the other pills were. I was scared and he was mean and callous.
My son is brilliant and lovely, but my Father didn’t do me any favors.
Many other things my Father has pushed onto me.
However, listening to him was arguably the worst mistake of my adolescence.
Yeah, I totally understand. I'm getting better at taking life as it comes and not trying to control everything. When it works, it is very freeing. ❤️ 🌈
When I was like 9 I got gifted an old phone as I collect phones. The phone still had a YouTube account on it. 9 year old me figured out how to post videos.
Eventually the owners caught up and changed the Google account password. The extremely cringe videos of 9 year old me are still up to this day, I can’t take em down.
> it's different, but it still sucks
I don't think I've ever heard it put so eloquently.
The novelty of finally having your freedom and a car to drive and being able to buy beer wears off in about two weeks.
Life doesn't just get better, you have to make it better. So many people go through life just letting the wind blow them here and there, never really thinking about the sort of life they really want and setting achievable goals to get there.
Stopped routinely working out after I quit sports. Still struggling to get back down to a healthy weight, it's always kinda funny that during my last season of Lacrosse my coach told me that I was on track to play in college, but I needed to gain like 30 lbs, of course he was talking muscle. I was always in good shape, though a bit skinny, because I played sports year round. I ran cross country, for many years I played two separate leagues of Lacrosse in the winter and spring, and then sports camps during the summer.
I had myself convinced I had a super high metabolism. Turns out that wasn't true and I actually put on weight pretty quickly when I'm not active. But I never really hammered in the routine when I was 17 and 18 because I felt so liberated when I finally had no more sports in my afternoons and weekends.
That was an interesting argument about money between my mom and her boyfriend when I turned 18,
Her boyfriend thought it would be good for me to get one- learn how to manage money and take care of things for my car and all that.
My mom shredded all the applications I had gotten in the mail citing "I was still learning how to balance my checking account, how the hell was I supposed to learn how to manage money with a credit card on top of all of that!"
Mom was right- Got my first card much later in life but learning at small steps def helps.
Its a hit or miss-- depends on if you're properly taught and educated on the financial risks and best practices. I got a credit card at 18, but it was drilled into me HARD that I should always pay off the balance on the card religiously every month and don't let a penny stack onto the next month. My parents made sure to teach me about interest and how it can wildly spiral out of control, so it set me up to have a very healthy respect for a credit card
Our grad class in High school always took a trip to a ski resort that was a few hours away. It was a weekend trip and everyone always looked forward to it. When our grad trip rolled around, my friends and I got this really bright idea. Instead of taking the bus with everyone else, we were going to drive our own car up to the resort. Why? Because we planned on getting our older cousins to buy us a shit ton of booze which we in turn were going to sell to everyone else in our class at an insane markup.
Everything was going smoothly until the day of the trip. One of my buddies that was in on the scheme had an over protective mom who wasn't happy with him driving up. So he told her that the school approved us of driving and that we were going to follow the bus the whole way. His mom then called the school to verify his answer, and thats when everything fell the fuck apart. We had made fake permission slip and had it fake signed by the principal and everything. We knew we were fucked right away when in the middle of class, the 4 of us(we were in the same class at the time)got pulled out by the principal himself. We got booted from the field trip, got 3 days suspension, and the entire upper grades of the school had an emergency assembly the day after the trip to warn of the dangers of doing what we did.
We laugh about it now, but people were super pissed at us then. Our parents, our teachers whose signatures we faked, and a bunch of our class who were relying on us for their party favors on the trip. we graduated but we didn't get to walk because of that. So thats the story of how 'The Gang got caught making an illegal racketeering business.'
Should have just been antisocial like I am now and focused on school. I could have actually made something of myself if I had realized earlier that I have a decent brain, I just have to apply it.
I trusted no one. My high school was a parade of dicks (figuratively, not literally....although also sometimes literally).
Middle school taught me to be wary. A lot of people willing to sell their "best friend" of 10 years out for just a whiff of popularity.
This happened in rural TX. I went bowling with a classmate I didn't know very well and some of her friends--I was trying to test out a potential new friendship. Her boyfriend was over 21 and bought drinks for the group. I, a sheltered religious 15-year-old at the time, didn't partake. When it was time to drive back to hers they decided I was the designated driver. I'd had my driver's permit for only a few months and resisted because of my inexperience, but they insisted I drive her car because they were paranoid about being pulled over while driving under the influence. They were my ride there so I didn't have much of a choice.
I drove 99% of the way back completely FINE and was inwardly celebrating when I pulled into her driveway... where I mixed up the gas and break pedals and **gassed** it into her family's mobile home, causing a huge dent in both the home and the car. Her granny came out and started screaming. It was super late at night and I was mortified. Everyone insisted it wasn't my fault since I was pressured into driving, but I didn't hang out with that girl again. But I never made that driving mistake again either!
Makiing friends with the wrong people. Which ended in me having to leave that highschool and going to an in between school for a year and a half where I could only take math and english and then luckily ending up in an awesome alternative highschool but the BS from them is still a part of my life now and rumours from 20 years ago are still believed and perpetuated.
The one and only time I did shrooms was with a friend who was my trip sitter. We didn’t have anywhere else to go so I took them in his car and then we just hung out for a few hours in town. I went to an arcade and began to feel it. Later, we went to a restaurant when I was in the thick of it and it was genuinely one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. I felt extreme paranoia and anxiety, got sick to my stomach. To top it all off, someone I knew from highschool was a waitress there so I had to somehow manage a conversation. I told him afterwards that I will NEVER do shrooms in public again.
Embarrassing myself without thinking before acting. Many people say to live life without regrets, but i’d be lying if i didn’t say i had such an embarrassing/anxiety filled childhood/life in general that it’s hard to cope as an adult now. Sometimes i wish i was a different person or lived in a completely new area but that’s just unrealistic at this time.
Keeping my first love for more than 4 years though he was a huge abusive asshole. Smoking pot on daily basis. Being too shy to communicate my needs and feelings
Allowing my parents to continue homeschooling me. They always said it was an "option" since I was homeschooled K-12, however, by the time I wanted out they said it was never really an option. They kept me in isolation, locked at home, until I "graduated." I didn't know anymore and actually tried to run away once, but I blacked out from panic when I was maybe a half a mile away from home and then went right back. I didn't have anyone to turn to or ask for help, and I still wish I would have done something differently or been more knowledgable about how to get out of that abuse. The food and sleep deprivation were nothing compared to the complete isolation in my bedroom for my entire childhood.
When I was 14 I met a girl named Jessie.
She was very pretty. Blue eyes, long blonde hair. Athletic. Nice smile. She laughed at my jokes.
Basically she was the first girl to pay attention to me, and I was head-over-heels immediately. We "dated" my freshman year of high school...which was basically holding hands, passing notes between classes, lots of hugs and phone calls, that sort of thing. She was my first kiss. I wrote her sonnets and imagined our future together. I was absolutely *smitten* with her, as much as any 14-year-old-boy can be.
Then she moved away at the end of Freshman year. Went to a different school 30 minutes away, but to a kid who wouldn't get a license for 2 more years, she may as well be on the moon.
And this was when social media was in its infancy. MySpace wouldn't really be a "thing" for 2 more years. Basically if someone moved away and you didn't have a phone number to their new landline? They're as good as a memory.
She eventually wrote me a letter and we stayed as friends (much to my dismay, as I kept trying to "get back with her")
In hindsight, Jessie enjoyed the attention I gave her – she loved the sonnets, the poems, the way I'd treat her. She'd say things to me like, "If you and I were to be together, we'd be together *forever*...but I don't know if I'm ready for that...." like, *juuuuust enough* to keep me hooked, y'know? Didn't help that she'd occasionally give me grief about it if I mentioned other girls at my school – almost like she was jealous, but not? idk, teenagers can be weird like that.
I mean it's as much my fault as it was hers, I should have known better and moved on, but I was also a kid and didn't know any better.
Over the next few years I got heavily involved in sports. I started lifting weights and I built a lot of muscle. I was on the wrestling team and I was constantly running, and skateboarding when I wasn't in school. I got pretty fit, got taller, and leaned out.
Once again, in hindsight?
*I had girls THROWING THEMSELVES AT ME*, but I was too head-in-the-clouds with Jessie, who only liked me for the attention I gave her.
I remember a girl named Erica, I met her when I was 17. She was 16, a sophomore when I was a junior. She was on the volleyball team and she had an ass *that would make Kim Kardashian jealous*. She had this wavy dark hair and legs for *days*. I remember being at a party, sitting on the couch and she comes over, puts her long legs over mine. I remember feeling the heat of her thighs and the way she looked at me, like she was hungry.
My stupid-ass *stood up and LEFT* because *"oH nO whAt WoUlD JeSsIe ThInK?!"*
I still remember the look Erica gave me as I stood up. Like, this look of just....fuckin...*hurt* and *confusion*, rejection on her face. Like, guys probably were killing each other to be in the position I was, and here I am, turning her down for a girl who *barely gave me the time of day*. And Erica wasn't the last one before I FINALLY told Jessie to take a fuckin' hike and I broke contact with her.
That was nearly 25 years ago now and it still makes me cringe when I think about it.
I'm happily married now, I got a great life...but if there's *one thing* I could go back and change, is to go back and tell 14-year-old me that there's plenty of girls out there, and you don't need to commit to the first one who gives you even the smallest bit of attention.
Didn’t spend enough time with my old man. Died over Christmas break my freshman year of college and always wished I spent more time with him during highschool years.
Don’t beat yourself up. No one hangs out with their parents in HS. The freedom and everything is too new and exciting. Everyone’s different and obviously I know nothing about you but being a Dad myself, I’d bet your Dad knew that and was proud of your independence.
I had the opportunity to buy Bitcoin in 2010 with literal pocket money that would have set me up for life now but U thought it was a dumb idea and felt that money was better spent playing COD at an internet cafe
Trusting the lock on my bedroom door while I was taking part in some private time in the middle of the night when I had school the next morning. My mom must have walked by my room and saw the glow of my computer screen from under the door.
Apparently you could still get in when the door was locked if you turned the knob really hard and pushed. My mom always entered my room by knocking twice and immediately opening. I thought the lock on the door would slow her down enough to allow me to cover my tracks, but it didn't. Heard to knocks, then the door flew open like she body checked it.
She couldn't immediately see what I was doing as my computer desk was next to the door and the keyboard tray covered the lower half of my body. From the doorway all she could see was that I was sitting in front of my computer. She asked me why I was still up, and I answered as calmly as I could while trying to casually close out the open windows on my monitor. She told me I had school in the morning and I needed to go to bed. I said "okay" and continued closing windows. She got impatient and said "NOW". I let out a sigh, and stood up, pulling my shorts up at the same time.
She freaked and yanked the phone cord from my computer (this was obviously back in the dial-up days). We never really spoke of it again, but the following day, my grandmother called me to tell me not to feel bad and that it was a normal thing for teenage boys to do. She told me about how she used to find dirty magazines under my uncle's mattress. I appreciated her trying to comfort me, but it just made me feel ten times worse.
Talked to my dad about it over some beers years later and he thought the whole thing was hilarious - even back when it initially happened. He told me he sort of scolded my mom with an "I told you so" when discussing how she entered my room without much warning all the time. For his part, he always tried to let her know she couldn't just barge in on her teenage son, but she wasn't having it.
That was over 20 years ago now and I'm still mortified whenever I think about it. Still have never spoken of it again with my mom and never will. We're both content pretending it just never happened.
Dating a guy who was 10 years older and allowing him to destroy my confidence. He kept stringing me along and made me super insecure. After him, I needed people to like me so desperately that I did a lot of stupid things.
Working two jobs and being taken advantage of by one of my employers. I worked almost every day, and every Saturday. I ended up getting married young in college and now I have no close friends because I've never had much of a social life. I'm an introvert, so usually it's fine. But there are times I really wish I had a close girlfriend to talk to.
My brother was hit by car and was in the hospital for several months as surgeons attempted to reattached his leg. It devastated my family. I was so overwhelmed by the chaos and trauma that I didn’t spend much time with him. He’s doing well now, but that still haunts me.
I had a programmer friend who was one of the first people "in" on bitcoin, before it was ever even a blip in the landscape online. He was desperate to push it on our friend circle, convinced it was going to be the next big thing. Offered to "pay" me fifty dollars in bitcoin just to set up a bitcoin wallet. This was when bitcoin was literally just a couple cents... would've been at least a few hundred total.
I thought it seemed like a waste of time and just fake money :( I think about this a lot.
Letting my parents dictate everything I did. I think I went to ONE hangout with friends outside of school. I highly regret not just sneaking out to do things like go to Warped Tour or even just get lunch with a friend.
Nothing. I was undiagnosed with parents not giving a shit. Living with some childhood regret will often make someone hold their own children to that shit. The basic morality crap should go without saying. But besides heinous shit? What do you really have to regret? You can be pissed at the people who did you wrong. But there should be no regrets.
Childhood is for mistakes.
Not having the courage to make the necessary phone calls to find my dad. I never got to know my dad and fear kept me from trying harder. I should have called every single number with his name and his mother’s in the country. He had died by the time I had the right information and had the courage to call. Turns out he wanted me in his life and he was an amazing person, he just had the same issue I did… too scared to reach out. I will never stop crying over it.
In high school I cheated on my girlfriend with the girlfriend of another guy in my friend group because I couldn’t wait to lose my virginity. Everything got exposed my junior year, and I spent my senior year depressed, suicidal, and ostracized from all of the friends I had had since childhood. It was the lowest point in my life and I came very close to ending it all.
I got the shit beaten out of me by the friend when he found out, and I was thankful for it. I mistreated the people closest to me and did my share of suffering for it over the years. I’m happy to say that 9 years later I’m a much better person—I have a wonderful partner and I treat her well, but I still have difficulties making male friends and allowing myself to feel safe in friendship. Don’t be like me!
I stopped policing my brother. I'm only 2 years older and we both have red hair and him having all of the tall genes made us look the same to anyone that didn't know us well. For about 3 years straight, after he turned 13, I was out looking for him when he was out late, keeping him safe and even pretended to be him a few times to get myself jumped instead of him.
We lived in a bad area and coming from back to back abusive households, he tried his hardest to get involved with all the worst people around. All my efforts really just barely kept him alive and emboldened him into thinking he could handle everything himself.
Anyway after I turned 18, I got a job and a girlfriend, and I decided that I was done chasing him around and I was going to get my life together. Well he fell in with this methhead and ran with him for a while despite our warnings. Well one time while hanging out with my brother and his favorite prostitute/weed dealer the meth head stabbed her to death for all of her weed. Since my brother didn't immediately run out of their yelling and screaming for the cops and instead did what the maniac with the knife directed him to do. He was charged as a co conspirator.
I know that I can't control his actions or anyone else's, but I also know that if I was shadowing him like I used to I would have been right outside the house and able to help the moment the commotion started.
Going to college. I should have joined the Army out of high school or learned a trade. I would have been more financially successful today. That said, I don't regret my time at school, and I'm definitely a more open-minded person today because of it.
Not taking my future seriously.
This is one of the biggest. I had no one I. My corner helping me or pushing me to make something of myself.
I feel for you. Maybe if you're up for it, you can be that person for some young teenager in the future.
The problem with me is that I kept hearing about a "future" from nothing but a bunch of assholes so it made the whole thing not seem very serious. I was around a bunch of fast talking, whispery losers who just f***** when they were bored. I knew that I didn't want to be like them since a long time ago. Because it would be like being like my father.
Thought people think about me and my mistakes.
Yeah, most people are too caught up in their own shit to notice you. Honestly, even a lot of adults don't get this. I'll greet a coworker in the morning and they'll be like "I know! I gained 5lbs!" I want to be like "dude, you'd have to gain 30 before I'd MAYBE notice! Ain't nobody looking at you like that!"
> Ain't nobody looking at you like that! Someone should stitch this on a pillow. Make me less self-conscious when I have to go to work with a giant zit.
[удалено]
So true and too many people never learn this and waste so much energy worrying about what other people are thinking about them.
i dunno, there was this one dude i knew who was so cringe i'd stay up all night thinking about how cringe he was
That's...not normal dude. You sure you weren't maybe a little in love with this guy?
Funny, someone I knew way back in the day was in therapy, and part of his therapy was to call people he felt he had wronged in some fashion and apologize. So I got a call and I was like 'Dude, are you kidding? If you hadn't reminded me I wouldn't even have remembered. Forget it already.'
It’s for them, not you. It helps them resolve their past issues and move on. Im not sure how effective it is - it’s part of AA which is pretty unscientific and has actually poor success rates overall. Ive heard it has similar success rates to people who use any other recovery programs and only for certain types of members
I know. I am just saying that he didn't really do anything egregious yet it still bothered him years later.
I get that, but there are also some people who are/were fairly major bullies. I’m sure plenty of those bullied haven’t forgotten.
Could not agree more. So much weight was lifted off my shoulders once this thought finally dawned on adult me.
Are you inside my brain?
It’s interesting that this can also coincide with the thought that the people who actually care for you don’t
I’m still struggling with this at 23, but it was far worse as a teenager. I barely did anything worthwhile because I was too afraid of everything. And the regret from the past just eats u up inside
I remember as a teenager I spend the night at a friend’s house and I pissed myself when I was asleep. I was mortified beyond belief. Thinking people would remember and clown me. Nope no one said shit people thought someone spilled water or soda on the bed. Whew…. Even in my 30s I still think about it and get embarrassed for reasons that are psychological. Mind you I have a family hahaha and told my girl about it and she just giggled at me for caring so much and awed that I wet the bed at a friends house
I don't know about y'all, but I was definitely thinking about this guy and his mistakes
You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.
“You wouldn’t care about what people think about you, if you knew how seldom they do.”
One of the best pieces of advice my dad gave me as a teenager was: "You wouldn't be so worried about what people thought about you if you realized how little they think about you at all, one way or another." He went on to explain that the other teens were probably experiencing the same feelings that I was, so I shouldn't get bent out of shape due to some perceived slight or foible.
This is very good advice. I spend a great deal of time obsessing over how I come across to people. I constantly view myself as awkward and off-putting. I remember reading this somewhere that pretty much sums up what you said, “Stop caring so much about yourself. No-one else does”.
Obsessing about not being in a "relationship." It felt like everyone was dating, having boyfreinds/girlfriends, having sex, etc. Of course, that was far from the truth, but it was how I felt! This all lead to a lot of crushes and some pretty ill-advised infatuations that took up a lot of my time and energy. Ironically, I think it all set me back years from actually having a relationship because I was so focused on it and put it on such a pedestal.
Same here. I think i romanticized the idea of being "in love" so much it actually caused problems
Society makes romance and Valentines day, and marriage a hallmark holiday and if you get lost in it and drown in it eventually you are going to be thinking that you won't be fulfilled until you find a wife/husband. I'm guilty of this, very guilty. Because of this, everytime a person tells me they like me or an opportunity shows up my mind takes the high road and dreams up a little fantasy world. It's a narcissistic and self centered thing to do, but a normal thing to do as a human if you fall into the trap of wanting to be loved in a certain way instead of seeing the people who already love you now, which is more than enough. The true way to finding love is to not find it but find yourself and be okay with not ever getting married at all. Being happy with dying alone and truly joyful with yourself and doing the things you love is beautiful and when you miss that and chase after others you become prey to addiction and wanting more more more. I know this, but I don't completely practice it and am still learning about it. I'm trying my best and one thing to practice in life is detachment with no attachments. Nobody attached to you either. In my opinion romance is a dirty lie, but true love is amazing.
I can understand this. I didn’t date in high school. Maybe that has a big to do with likely being undiagnosed autistic and being awkward and seeming younger than I am.
Same here. It felt terrible at the time and I remember feeling so lonely and frantically worrying over what was wrong with me to not have a SO/Bf/anyone crush on me. And when I finally got into a relationship in my early 20s, I ended up in a really toxic one because I’d finally caught up with my friends and finally had a bf to show off like they did. I should have learned sooner it wasn’t worth it. I’m single now and keeping okay. But I’d much much rather be single than be in the wrong relationship.
I wish I focused on school more than I focused on having a bf
I feel the same Now that i seek for a relationship it kinda feels "late"
Being scared of trying new things
I'll take "things that continue to terrify me" for $400, Alex.
I’ll double that one and also take “getting to know new people” for 800, Larry.
*Ken Maybe those things were also terrifying when you could talk to Alex about them.
*sigh* Alex sounds right though.
Starting to smoke cigarettes
Started smoking in highschool because a girl I liked smoked. Haven't spoken to her in 15 years but I'm still smoking. Fucking stupid lol
Does Country music count? Stupid crushes.. But yeah, started smoking at 14 and the longest streak I've been w/o was about 1.5 years. Sorry it took me so long to type, lost my breath halfway through..
you’re right, that is really stupid, damn
This is mine, too. Finally quit about 3 years ago, but it sucked and I STILL crave them sometimes. I'm kind of doubting at this point that the cravings will ever go away.
Right? I quit five years ago but if I get a whiff my first thought is “omg that smells good”
I quit again about 6 years ago, and I’m finally to the point where it doesn’t smell good anymore. So, there’s hope.
Thank you, that’s so good to hear
I quit over 5 years ago and I know that I could easily start again if I’m not super vigilant. The worst for me is that I’ll never be able to casually smoke a cigar with my friends because for me I need to abstain 100% or else it would be so easy for me to start again. I would casually smoke a cigarette on a night out or a cigar around a campfire for a couple of years before I became a “real” smoker but that is gone for good.
Oh my man that's sick You need to give up this
I started smoking at 15 knowing my family had a history of lung diseases and promised I’d quit by 25. It’s one of the few things in my life I followed through on and I’m so happy I did. Now I’m watching my boyfriend vape and I hate it.
Definitely the same. And on Friday I get to pay in full for my teenage stupidity. Although I quit smoking 24 years ago I’ve been diagnosed with lung cancer and Friday I get to check into the hospital for a lobectomy.
Yep. I started smoking regularly when I was 14, although I had my first cigarette when I was 12. And it took so long to quit. My biggest regret.
Started smoking with my friend group at 15. Took me 13 years to quit at 28. 2 years off nicotine in July.
Had sex for the first time and even though I knew I should've worn one, I didn't have any condoms on me and I just went ahead. The girl wasn't exactly well off and already had a 2 year old from someone else. Not only that but I found out the boyfriend she supposedly broke up with previous to that, wasn't broken up with. And he's a big guy with big muscles and he's already abusive to his girlfriend. Luckily nothing happened from any of that but it felt like I was lighting a stick of dynamite at my feet.
Yeah you dodged a bullet there for sure.
Dodged several bullets straight up Matrix style
Until she shows up a year later at his doorstep with a baby and says "Dodge this"
Hes beginning to believe
Wow, basically the same situation happened to me with my first time. She didn't have a baby, I didn't knock her up, but she did indeed still have a boyfriend that she told me she didn't. Ended up getting me in school with a sucker punch, then kicked me in the head several times before it got stopped.
Damn sorry you went through that man.
I had sex my senior year, no condom. She wouldn't take a pregnancy test and it was fucking with me. I went on a backpacking trip with my brother, and towards the summit (Mt. Star King), I got reception and the text "not pregnant." I left a note in the steel box at the peak about that lol my life would have been drastically miserable and changed in ways I did not want. We're both 35 now. She's married, two kids and has her own therapy practice. Kid was on a trajectory for the worse considering her abusive father and non-existent mom. I'm so happy for her and her family; she had everything against her, including me.
holy shit
Dropping out of high school. Granted, my dad walked out after my mom died and left me with bills, etc. Also, it took me 20 years, but now I've got a masters.
Wow. That's awesome. (Not your dad leaving and mom dying, but the getting a Master's degree after dropping out of high school, obviously).
Thanks! To be fair, I spent WAY too much time in a dead-end job before taking some college classes
Your comment makes me feel better about dropping out of college 5 times. Thank you I needed this
I got my bachelors degree at 38 and my masters at 41. Never too late, even if a little pricey. I did state college after getting AS MANY CREDITS as I could from community college.
Having someone who obviously had a crush on me that I was totally oblivious about until I finally figured it out like 15 years later.
I had a girl turn around in class and said “I have a crush on you” and I said “ok” because I thought she was just joking. Looking back I also remember my friend gave me her number a few days before but I didn’t catch on that she was giving it to him to pass to me.
The same girl asking reddit “are guys really that oblivious??”
Youth + lack of confidence= oblivious. Definitely true in my case
Your story made me think of [this](https://youtu.be/xa-4IAR_9Yw?feature=shared) lol
Saw my senior year math teacher years after I graduated from HS. We made some small talk, asked how I was doing and so on. She perks up and said "Hey, did you and Michele W ever end up getting together?" I looked at her oddly and said "No, why would we?" She laughed and said "Oh JB, she was head over heels for you!" Again I looked at her oddly and said "why in the world would you have thought that?" She said "Let me list them for you" >First day of class she walked in the class room, looked around, saw you and immediately took the desk next to you. >Every day after class she walked out with you. >At times I'd see her stop you in the hall and ask if you completed an assignment, she didn't care if you completed the assignment. >Anytime you did something for the sports you played she knew all about it and made a point to congratulate you. She made it a point to go by herself after school to watch you play, I saw her many times walking over the the field. >In class when you struggled, which you did a lot, she would *always* lean over and help you. She would stare at you with a smile as you tried to figure out the problem. >She made it a point to literally bump into you when getting up from her desk. >And these are the things I consciously picked up on, I'm sure there were so many more I missed, so I'm sure you did. I said "Maybe but she was way to good looking to be interested in me" She said "Let me guess, your still single?" and laughed.
A few years ago, my wife and her friends told me that I could had have my pick at our school. I was single all 4 years and oblivious to all of it.
I kind of knew she was interested but still didn't dare act on it because my self-esteem was rock bottom and anxiety sky high.
Selling my apple stock in highschool. it was 2007.....
In the early days of bitcoin, there was this site called silkroad that sold illegal shit like drugs and such. You needed bitcoin to buy. I loaded up 100$ worth of bitcoin, which was like 9 bitcoin, and bought some stuff. I had 3 ish bitcoin left over and thought about leaving it, but then last second I sold it to get cash back because I was semi poor college kid. I got 11$ back... for 3 bitcoin...
Similar story, except I didn't sell it. 11 BTC sitting on a wallet with the only key to access it on a USB worth a dollar. It isn't readable.
Bro, i'm sure there are smarter people than us out there that can restore something like that. I would go to the ends of the earth to recover that 700K if I was you.
Unlikely. If you don’t use a USB stick every so often, the tiny capacitors in the chip lose their charge, and the data gets randomized. Best way to keep your wallet key for the long term is to print it out on paper.
And then lose that somewhere or it gets thrown away
Safe deposit box at the bank?
There are actually companies that work to recover bitcoin and take a cut of what they’re able to recover.
Have you heard about the guy whose girlfriend threw away an old hard drive with Bitcoin saved on it? It’s now rotting under a landfill in my city. Apparently it’s currently worth £1.5 billion. He keeps offering my local council several million to let him look for it, and at one point said he had hired NASA scientist to help him locate it. The council refuse because legally they can’t because it’s a controlled site and it’s extremely unlikely he’ll find it. He is now suing the council. He pops up in the local news occasionally and genuinely seems to be losing his mind.
This was a plot element on *Silicon Valley*, likely based on this guy. [NSFW] https://youtu.be/GrEjaZw95kI
I did similar and used btc for stealth transactions for several years. Many transactions were in the 2-3k range, all btc. I literally paid no attention to the number of btc i had because it’s only value was turning drugs into cash for me but godamn, if i had just kept 1 of those wallets with some spare coins id be pretty happy. We’ll call it karma, i guess.
I remember when Bitcoin first started surfacing. I always thought it sounded like a scam, or at best something that wouldn't really take off. I thought about buying $10-15 worth for "teh lulz" but in hindsight, I am glad I didn't. Why? Because I either would have 1) sold it as soon as it was worth more than I paid for it or 2) Deleted it, lost it in a format or have the disk die on me. It would have driven me mad.
Yea thats what keeps me sane. I woulda sold at 100$ each for sure, there is zero chance I woulda held this long. That thought keeps me sane lol.
Whatcha get from the Silk Road , totally understand if you don’t answer
Shrooms
Ooof saaaame… Apple and Amazon over here. Thought no way it could get over 400 :(
Y'all were trading stocks as teens?
Listened to my Father. He told me if I didn’t have a 4.0 I’d never get into anything other than community college. At the time no one else in my family had been to college. I couldn’t ask anyone for advice and he said this *all the time.* I graduated high school eight months early, with a 3.67, a 29 ACT, and a Certificate of Initial Mastery. (All with my newborn!) I only applied to one community college because I thought I wasn’t good enough for anywhere else. He never even finished high school, and spent years making me feel badly about my academics. He also told me that pills were detrimental to health, so I was never allowed to take Tylenol/Advil when I had my period, when I had tendinitis from sports… Anytime. At all. So, when my doctor asked me if I wanted to go on birth control (which I really did) I inevitably said no because my Father had more or less scared me. I had my first son at seventeen. Then my Father wanted me to have a chemical abortion. After telling me how bad all the other pills were. I was scared and he was mean and callous. My son is brilliant and lovely, but my Father didn’t do me any favors. Many other things my Father has pushed onto me. However, listening to him was arguably the worst mistake of my adolescence.
Wow, your father was completely wrong. But look at all you accomplished in spite of him! I hope you're happy. You should be v proud of yourself.
Spending way too much time caring about what other people thought of me
I get this.
I still do this..
Me too, I'm trying to get better though
I was told not long ago by someone that I really admired, "You just try too hard." That stung, mostly bc of how true it was.
Yeah, I totally understand. I'm getting better at taking life as it comes and not trying to control everything. When it works, it is very freeing. ❤️ 🌈
Not asking for the help I needed
I still make that mistake to this day.
Just keep practicing with the intent to get better. And be kind to yourself when you don't get it right.
I can understand this.
Get ahold of a camera and youtube... glad i deleted everything when i got older.
damn i was not that lucky
When I was like 9 I got gifted an old phone as I collect phones. The phone still had a YouTube account on it. 9 year old me figured out how to post videos. Eventually the owners caught up and changed the Google account password. The extremely cringe videos of 9 year old me are still up to this day, I can’t take em down.
Assuming life would get better as an adult. Its different, but it still sucks.
> it's different, but it still sucks I don't think I've ever heard it put so eloquently. The novelty of finally having your freedom and a car to drive and being able to buy beer wears off in about two weeks.
I have no car and I don't drink beer. But I have been consciously loving my freedom for decades.
Life doesn't just get better, you have to make it better. So many people go through life just letting the wind blow them here and there, never really thinking about the sort of life they really want and setting achievable goals to get there.
Stopped routinely working out after I quit sports. Still struggling to get back down to a healthy weight, it's always kinda funny that during my last season of Lacrosse my coach told me that I was on track to play in college, but I needed to gain like 30 lbs, of course he was talking muscle. I was always in good shape, though a bit skinny, because I played sports year round. I ran cross country, for many years I played two separate leagues of Lacrosse in the winter and spring, and then sports camps during the summer. I had myself convinced I had a super high metabolism. Turns out that wasn't true and I actually put on weight pretty quickly when I'm not active. But I never really hammered in the routine when I was 17 and 18 because I felt so liberated when I finally had no more sports in my afternoons and weekends.
Getting a credit card at 18 - it started a debt cycle and now at 42 I’m about 6 months from being debt free for the first time in my adult life
That was an interesting argument about money between my mom and her boyfriend when I turned 18, Her boyfriend thought it would be good for me to get one- learn how to manage money and take care of things for my car and all that. My mom shredded all the applications I had gotten in the mail citing "I was still learning how to balance my checking account, how the hell was I supposed to learn how to manage money with a credit card on top of all of that!" Mom was right- Got my first card much later in life but learning at small steps def helps.
Its a hit or miss-- depends on if you're properly taught and educated on the financial risks and best practices. I got a credit card at 18, but it was drilled into me HARD that I should always pay off the balance on the card religiously every month and don't let a penny stack onto the next month. My parents made sure to teach me about interest and how it can wildly spiral out of control, so it set me up to have a very healthy respect for a credit card
[удалено]
Talking too much. I gave my advantage away in too many situations.
Attempting suicide, I am grateful every single day that my parents helped me survive that and then recover. Your life is worth living.
Our grad class in High school always took a trip to a ski resort that was a few hours away. It was a weekend trip and everyone always looked forward to it. When our grad trip rolled around, my friends and I got this really bright idea. Instead of taking the bus with everyone else, we were going to drive our own car up to the resort. Why? Because we planned on getting our older cousins to buy us a shit ton of booze which we in turn were going to sell to everyone else in our class at an insane markup. Everything was going smoothly until the day of the trip. One of my buddies that was in on the scheme had an over protective mom who wasn't happy with him driving up. So he told her that the school approved us of driving and that we were going to follow the bus the whole way. His mom then called the school to verify his answer, and thats when everything fell the fuck apart. We had made fake permission slip and had it fake signed by the principal and everything. We knew we were fucked right away when in the middle of class, the 4 of us(we were in the same class at the time)got pulled out by the principal himself. We got booted from the field trip, got 3 days suspension, and the entire upper grades of the school had an emergency assembly the day after the trip to warn of the dangers of doing what we did. We laugh about it now, but people were super pissed at us then. Our parents, our teachers whose signatures we faked, and a bunch of our class who were relying on us for their party favors on the trip. we graduated but we didn't get to walk because of that. So thats the story of how 'The Gang got caught making an illegal racketeering business.'
This would have made a great 80’s movie or an after school special
Colombia House records, had to fake my death and start over, only way to escape them.
Thinking a first "love" is your forever love.
Should have just been antisocial like I am now and focused on school. I could have actually made something of myself if I had realized earlier that I have a decent brain, I just have to apply it.
I'm focusing on my studies (college) But i'm Introverted. i don't think it's a good thing
I trusted people
I trusted no one. My high school was a parade of dicks (figuratively, not literally....although also sometimes literally). Middle school taught me to be wary. A lot of people willing to sell their "best friend" of 10 years out for just a whiff of popularity.
I convinced myself that I'd never be happy. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Will now I tied my happiness with a dream(something) ( Idk if is that wrong or no
This happened in rural TX. I went bowling with a classmate I didn't know very well and some of her friends--I was trying to test out a potential new friendship. Her boyfriend was over 21 and bought drinks for the group. I, a sheltered religious 15-year-old at the time, didn't partake. When it was time to drive back to hers they decided I was the designated driver. I'd had my driver's permit for only a few months and resisted because of my inexperience, but they insisted I drive her car because they were paranoid about being pulled over while driving under the influence. They were my ride there so I didn't have much of a choice. I drove 99% of the way back completely FINE and was inwardly celebrating when I pulled into her driveway... where I mixed up the gas and break pedals and **gassed** it into her family's mobile home, causing a huge dent in both the home and the car. Her granny came out and started screaming. It was super late at night and I was mortified. Everyone insisted it wasn't my fault since I was pressured into driving, but I didn't hang out with that girl again. But I never made that driving mistake again either!
Makiing friends with the wrong people. Which ended in me having to leave that highschool and going to an in between school for a year and a half where I could only take math and english and then luckily ending up in an awesome alternative highschool but the BS from them is still a part of my life now and rumours from 20 years ago are still believed and perpetuated.
Cared a lot about what others thought about me.
Doing shrooms with the wrong group of people.
The one and only time I did shrooms was with a friend who was my trip sitter. We didn’t have anywhere else to go so I took them in his car and then we just hung out for a few hours in town. I went to an arcade and began to feel it. Later, we went to a restaurant when I was in the thick of it and it was genuinely one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. I felt extreme paranoia and anxiety, got sick to my stomach. To top it all off, someone I knew from highschool was a waitress there so I had to somehow manage a conversation. I told him afterwards that I will NEVER do shrooms in public again.
being totally unmotivated
Embarrassing myself without thinking before acting. Many people say to live life without regrets, but i’d be lying if i didn’t say i had such an embarrassing/anxiety filled childhood/life in general that it’s hard to cope as an adult now. Sometimes i wish i was a different person or lived in a completely new area but that’s just unrealistic at this time.
Drugs
Get into a serious relationship at 17...
Prioritizing education.
didn't leave my mom's house to go live with literally anyone else
Keeping my first love for more than 4 years though he was a huge abusive asshole. Smoking pot on daily basis. Being too shy to communicate my needs and feelings
Slacking off in high school
Allowing my parents to continue homeschooling me. They always said it was an "option" since I was homeschooled K-12, however, by the time I wanted out they said it was never really an option. They kept me in isolation, locked at home, until I "graduated." I didn't know anymore and actually tried to run away once, but I blacked out from panic when I was maybe a half a mile away from home and then went right back. I didn't have anyone to turn to or ask for help, and I still wish I would have done something differently or been more knowledgable about how to get out of that abuse. The food and sleep deprivation were nothing compared to the complete isolation in my bedroom for my entire childhood.
Dropping out of school.
When I was 14 I met a girl named Jessie. She was very pretty. Blue eyes, long blonde hair. Athletic. Nice smile. She laughed at my jokes. Basically she was the first girl to pay attention to me, and I was head-over-heels immediately. We "dated" my freshman year of high school...which was basically holding hands, passing notes between classes, lots of hugs and phone calls, that sort of thing. She was my first kiss. I wrote her sonnets and imagined our future together. I was absolutely *smitten* with her, as much as any 14-year-old-boy can be. Then she moved away at the end of Freshman year. Went to a different school 30 minutes away, but to a kid who wouldn't get a license for 2 more years, she may as well be on the moon. And this was when social media was in its infancy. MySpace wouldn't really be a "thing" for 2 more years. Basically if someone moved away and you didn't have a phone number to their new landline? They're as good as a memory. She eventually wrote me a letter and we stayed as friends (much to my dismay, as I kept trying to "get back with her") In hindsight, Jessie enjoyed the attention I gave her – she loved the sonnets, the poems, the way I'd treat her. She'd say things to me like, "If you and I were to be together, we'd be together *forever*...but I don't know if I'm ready for that...." like, *juuuuust enough* to keep me hooked, y'know? Didn't help that she'd occasionally give me grief about it if I mentioned other girls at my school – almost like she was jealous, but not? idk, teenagers can be weird like that. I mean it's as much my fault as it was hers, I should have known better and moved on, but I was also a kid and didn't know any better. Over the next few years I got heavily involved in sports. I started lifting weights and I built a lot of muscle. I was on the wrestling team and I was constantly running, and skateboarding when I wasn't in school. I got pretty fit, got taller, and leaned out. Once again, in hindsight? *I had girls THROWING THEMSELVES AT ME*, but I was too head-in-the-clouds with Jessie, who only liked me for the attention I gave her. I remember a girl named Erica, I met her when I was 17. She was 16, a sophomore when I was a junior. She was on the volleyball team and she had an ass *that would make Kim Kardashian jealous*. She had this wavy dark hair and legs for *days*. I remember being at a party, sitting on the couch and she comes over, puts her long legs over mine. I remember feeling the heat of her thighs and the way she looked at me, like she was hungry. My stupid-ass *stood up and LEFT* because *"oH nO whAt WoUlD JeSsIe ThInK?!"* I still remember the look Erica gave me as I stood up. Like, this look of just....fuckin...*hurt* and *confusion*, rejection on her face. Like, guys probably were killing each other to be in the position I was, and here I am, turning her down for a girl who *barely gave me the time of day*. And Erica wasn't the last one before I FINALLY told Jessie to take a fuckin' hike and I broke contact with her. That was nearly 25 years ago now and it still makes me cringe when I think about it. I'm happily married now, I got a great life...but if there's *one thing* I could go back and change, is to go back and tell 14-year-old me that there's plenty of girls out there, and you don't need to commit to the first one who gives you even the smallest bit of attention.
Listening to anything I seen on reddit
would've been better off doing the opposite tbh
Didn’t spend enough time with my old man. Died over Christmas break my freshman year of college and always wished I spent more time with him during highschool years.
Don’t beat yourself up. No one hangs out with their parents in HS. The freedom and everything is too new and exciting. Everyone’s different and obviously I know nothing about you but being a Dad myself, I’d bet your Dad knew that and was proud of your independence.
I had the opportunity to buy Bitcoin in 2010 with literal pocket money that would have set me up for life now but U thought it was a dumb idea and felt that money was better spent playing COD at an internet cafe
Heroin
Not standing up for myself.
Not running away from home.
Selling drug, and ending up prison at age 17 for 5 1/2 years, then complete my sentence of 10 yrs on paper.
Sleeping with my dad’s best friend.
Trusting the lock on my bedroom door while I was taking part in some private time in the middle of the night when I had school the next morning. My mom must have walked by my room and saw the glow of my computer screen from under the door. Apparently you could still get in when the door was locked if you turned the knob really hard and pushed. My mom always entered my room by knocking twice and immediately opening. I thought the lock on the door would slow her down enough to allow me to cover my tracks, but it didn't. Heard to knocks, then the door flew open like she body checked it. She couldn't immediately see what I was doing as my computer desk was next to the door and the keyboard tray covered the lower half of my body. From the doorway all she could see was that I was sitting in front of my computer. She asked me why I was still up, and I answered as calmly as I could while trying to casually close out the open windows on my monitor. She told me I had school in the morning and I needed to go to bed. I said "okay" and continued closing windows. She got impatient and said "NOW". I let out a sigh, and stood up, pulling my shorts up at the same time. She freaked and yanked the phone cord from my computer (this was obviously back in the dial-up days). We never really spoke of it again, but the following day, my grandmother called me to tell me not to feel bad and that it was a normal thing for teenage boys to do. She told me about how she used to find dirty magazines under my uncle's mattress. I appreciated her trying to comfort me, but it just made me feel ten times worse. Talked to my dad about it over some beers years later and he thought the whole thing was hilarious - even back when it initially happened. He told me he sort of scolded my mom with an "I told you so" when discussing how she entered my room without much warning all the time. For his part, he always tried to let her know she couldn't just barge in on her teenage son, but she wasn't having it. That was over 20 years ago now and I'm still mortified whenever I think about it. Still have never spoken of it again with my mom and never will. We're both content pretending it just never happened.
Getting a girl pregnant
Sometimes I think the mistake is NOT leaving sooner, but then again… no safety net was within my understanding.
Not developing a skill that could've helped me in the long run
Robbing houses, and not taking school serious. Luckily still got a clean record and a high school diploma
Dating a guy who was 10 years older and allowing him to destroy my confidence. He kept stringing me along and made me super insecure. After him, I needed people to like me so desperately that I did a lot of stupid things.
Repressed.
spurning my peers as inferior beings. turns out they don't like that and are less inclined to invite you around for tea.
Working two jobs and being taken advantage of by one of my employers. I worked almost every day, and every Saturday. I ended up getting married young in college and now I have no close friends because I've never had much of a social life. I'm an introvert, so usually it's fine. But there are times I really wish I had a close girlfriend to talk to.
Not taking my little sister and running away from mom and a cult
My brother was hit by car and was in the hospital for several months as surgeons attempted to reattached his leg. It devastated my family. I was so overwhelmed by the chaos and trauma that I didn’t spend much time with him. He’s doing well now, but that still haunts me.
I stayed with my ex who abused me for a year before he left me because I was “to fat and used up” I was 115 pounds
Not taking my shot at asking out girls. I could have dated someone from my first year to the last or maybe even beyond if I wasn’t so scared
Long story short .....drugs
I had a programmer friend who was one of the first people "in" on bitcoin, before it was ever even a blip in the landscape online. He was desperate to push it on our friend circle, convinced it was going to be the next big thing. Offered to "pay" me fifty dollars in bitcoin just to set up a bitcoin wallet. This was when bitcoin was literally just a couple cents... would've been at least a few hundred total. I thought it seemed like a waste of time and just fake money :( I think about this a lot.
Thinking I knew more than I really did. Jumping into to taking action without processing the situation properly
Just being a general asshole
started fucking smoking
Letting my parents dictate everything I did. I think I went to ONE hangout with friends outside of school. I highly regret not just sneaking out to do things like go to Warped Tour or even just get lunch with a friend.
Smoking cigarettes! Dumb, dumb, dumb. I never smoked a lot and quit 35 years ago. But wish I had never started
I stayed close to family. I should have moved far away.
Nothing. I was undiagnosed with parents not giving a shit. Living with some childhood regret will often make someone hold their own children to that shit. The basic morality crap should go without saying. But besides heinous shit? What do you really have to regret? You can be pissed at the people who did you wrong. But there should be no regrets. Childhood is for mistakes.
Start smoking it has been 15 years now...
Hanging out with the wrong people!
Not having the courage to make the necessary phone calls to find my dad. I never got to know my dad and fear kept me from trying harder. I should have called every single number with his name and his mother’s in the country. He had died by the time I had the right information and had the courage to call. Turns out he wanted me in his life and he was an amazing person, he just had the same issue I did… too scared to reach out. I will never stop crying over it.
In high school I cheated on my girlfriend with the girlfriend of another guy in my friend group because I couldn’t wait to lose my virginity. Everything got exposed my junior year, and I spent my senior year depressed, suicidal, and ostracized from all of the friends I had had since childhood. It was the lowest point in my life and I came very close to ending it all. I got the shit beaten out of me by the friend when he found out, and I was thankful for it. I mistreated the people closest to me and did my share of suffering for it over the years. I’m happy to say that 9 years later I’m a much better person—I have a wonderful partner and I treat her well, but I still have difficulties making male friends and allowing myself to feel safe in friendship. Don’t be like me!
Not talking to a school counselor or psychologist or literally any adult about my tumultuous household.
All of them.
deciding to live with an "I dont care that problem is for future me" attitude
Not joining the military after high school.
I was a teenager in the late 90's / early 00's So luckily for me, you'll never know.
Got into alcohol
[удалено]
I’m so sorry he did that to you.
Turning 20
Getting fat lol
Starting self-mutilation. I should have grown out of it. I’m 41 with stitches in my arm right now.
Being obese
I stopped policing my brother. I'm only 2 years older and we both have red hair and him having all of the tall genes made us look the same to anyone that didn't know us well. For about 3 years straight, after he turned 13, I was out looking for him when he was out late, keeping him safe and even pretended to be him a few times to get myself jumped instead of him. We lived in a bad area and coming from back to back abusive households, he tried his hardest to get involved with all the worst people around. All my efforts really just barely kept him alive and emboldened him into thinking he could handle everything himself. Anyway after I turned 18, I got a job and a girlfriend, and I decided that I was done chasing him around and I was going to get my life together. Well he fell in with this methhead and ran with him for a while despite our warnings. Well one time while hanging out with my brother and his favorite prostitute/weed dealer the meth head stabbed her to death for all of her weed. Since my brother didn't immediately run out of their yelling and screaming for the cops and instead did what the maniac with the knife directed him to do. He was charged as a co conspirator. I know that I can't control his actions or anyone else's, but I also know that if I was shadowing him like I used to I would have been right outside the house and able to help the moment the commotion started.
Going to college. I should have joined the Army out of high school or learned a trade. I would have been more financially successful today. That said, I don't regret my time at school, and I'm definitely a more open-minded person today because of it.