Bad Choices...how many have YOU made?

The BBQ Pit
21

Hey, Frumious and PinkB, relax! You’re doin’ fine–and welcome to the head-smacking “Why Did I Do THAT?” club.

Lord knows I have a list of mundane screw-ups that would denude every forest on earth if I tried to write 'em down.
Ranges from choices that look okay on the surface but I’m not happy with them to chances I blew off–usually from a combination of cowardice and lack of effort.

Examples? I’ve been painfully shy all of my life. Gotten so I finally pass as normal, but so many good people, chances, I let pass, hugging corners.

The worst? My marriage. I married him, nuts in love, because he was the one persistent enough to break through. And I was so suprised I didn’t see him: he was an alcoholic who needed a keeper. I stayed with him for over 15 years while he systematically destroyed his life and finally made mine hell. I let him do it; I enabled the whole thing.

We’re just divorced, I’m 15 hard years older and he’s dying; doubt he’ll live out the year. No matter the details. The guilt for enabling that will stay with me the rest of my life.

I can’t weigh choices in hind-sight anymore. Some wonderful friends (who were waiting for me after I pulled away from them) reminded me that you do the best you can at the time. No guarantees, no matter what you choose. Just muddle through, learn what you can and go on.

Veb

22

I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m consciously trying to make more mistakes of the “I tried something and it didn’t work out” and fewer of the “I was too chicken to take a shot” variety.

23

Wow. Way to many to count.

24

gritting teeth um, is acceptable to send a virtual smack upside the head? Prob’ly not. :wink:

Dude, I may be too depressing, but you are waywayway too cheerful. What are you taking, and more importantly, may I have some?

And also, here in its pit debut, is my new sig. I chose another, originally, but it had a bad word in it. Another bad choice… it was suggested that I choose another.

Oh dear. It never ends, does it?

Damhna, unfortunately I did start out with a few strikes against me… or a bad hand… some genetic defects that couldn’t be corrected through a lot of surgeries and things. That has helped shape (read: warp) my life and choices considerably.

Hmm, that sounds like the genetic defect is, in fact, a bad hand. My hands are okay. So far. Just to clarify.

ducks to avoid flying chunks of Raven You are too funny…

Pink

25

Meeting, speaking, relating, fucking, staying with, and being lied to by my ex-girlfriend. Biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I learned an awful lot about misogyny after she left me to marry her abusive ex-boyfriend without as much as a phone call to tell me what she planned to do. Now I stumble from infatuation to infatuation never quite finding the right one, or in the case of a girl in my French class, finding the right one, only to find that she’s been in a relationship for seven years. Things suck sometimes.

I’d also like to mention that I think The Mighty Tiki God is cool. :slight_smile:

26

Regrets? I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.

Are we talking overall or just today?

Most of my old ones I blame on untreated mental illness. My current ones are my own damned fault. My old ones were, too, but I have a handy excuse for them.

However, it looks like some of you have trumped my fuckups.

27

37 and I ain’t talking 'till the statute of limitations runs out.:wink:

28

Oh, don’t get me started or I’ll just talk about stalker boy. Yeah, the looser that fucked with me, another woman and goddess knows how many others. You know, I escaped after a few hundred dollars, the other woman before me about the same… we were BOTH too smart to get sucked too deeply… his new victim? She has no idea… nor does her daughter … and neither one of us can really say shit because he’s too slick to EVER let her talk to us… he isolates her… her own FAMILY won’t know until it’s too late. She won’t know until her daughter has the guts to tell her the horror of what this man has done to HER about ten years from now.

But that’s life. Some people are compulsive, fucking lying dirt bags that should never have taken a breath of life. But that’s life. There are dirt bags, small-dicked- fuckheads worth about 2 cents that just keep going because they ISOLATE their victims. These birds of prey are really good at what they do and there is nothing an honest person can do because they’ve wrapped their victim in so much shit they can’t tell if it’s haze or LA…

I really wish I could or do or say more. But I can’t. Because his new “victim” is so sucked in she’d never believe me or any other woman that’s been there before. So yeah, sometimes, life just sucks and you can’t do shit and that sucks worse.

29

I can relate to this thread for damn sure.

Back in 1986, I was working as a licensed aircraft mechanic (A&P), and needed a final flight test to get a pilots license.

Well, I was working one Saturday, and overheard one of the “line boys” (they fueled planes, swept the hangar, general gofer type work) tell his girlfriend on the phone that he couldn’t do something (I forget what) with her because he had to work Sunday.

Being Mr Nice Guy, I told him I would work for him. (until this, I had never worked for him before) Before I heard the guy on the phone, I was NOT planning to work Sunday. I rarely worked on Sundays, just a side job here and there for free flying time.

Turns out that my wife (now ex) had made some tentative plans, but I was committed to work. ( I know, I should have talked to her first, and that made it so much worse)

Well, that Sunday, I was at work, got in an accident, and lost my right leg above the knee. Damn near killed me.
Yep, no shit, talk about a bad choice.

I finally came to grips with that years later, and now, thanks to an awesome prosthesis, lead a happy, productive life.
I must say though, at least once a day, I think back and say FUCK!FUCK!FUCK!

Believe me, you all, I have played the “what if” or “I shouldn’t have” etc game, and it took me years to learn that you just have to move on, or it will destroy you.

Please pardon the lengthy post.

30

A lot.

Making my mom feel like scum for moving me away from my friends, when she was really only trying to help the family.

going to meet that random guy off the internet

not being there for sean when he needed me

barely passing my last 2 years of high school because i didn’t care enough to try. now that i’m trying to get into college, i’m screwed

leaving my car keys behind when i went to florida

fucking my best friend, and my other best friend’s ex boyfriend

telling my other best friend about it. i blew a friendship almost 6 years because i was horny. and the worst part? she said she wouldn’t have been mad, except that i told her about it. Oy.

31

SMACK!!

OW!! :smiley:

OK, add being inappropriately cheerful to the list of mistakes…

Astroboy wanders off, rubbing the side of his head…

32

Aw… sorry I virtually smacked ya. Cheerful people just confuse me, because I can’t figure out how they got that way… :wink:

I really appreciate everyone who has responded to this… writing all of them out and reading them is rather theraputic…

33

“I wuz meant to be culled out…”
-caption from cartoon “‘Mr. Sensitive’ Can’t Take It” by Robert Crumb, 1981

Funny, but as much of a piece of shit I’ve made of my life, I don’t regret any of the sex & love stuff I’ve done - even though that’s been wholly or a part of every bad move. Neither am I bitter about the sexually-related wounds dealt to me by others (cheating girlfrends, user girlfriends etc.). I don’t think the flow of emotions and bodily fluids matters much to people in the long run. I regret not having made myself more usefull, I suppose, and not having given all the bastards a better fight. I lament the gratuitous cruelty of this world, but not the mindless pleasure.

Anyway, PinkBikini - be sure and floss your teeth. It doesnt’ take much moral courage and you won’t regret having done it.

34

The biggest bad choice I make every time is when I quit a job I tell off the boss.

Later, I wish I had just BSed my last day and had a reference when I needed it.

35

Serenity Now!
Serenity Now!

36

Krispy –

If what you say about your career is true, you have just shattered my image of you. If you had a good career, I’ll assume you had a college education. If you have a diploma and at least 15 years of work under your belt, that puts you at nearing age 40, minimum.
All this time I had you pegged as a bitter 17 year old.