There is absolutely nothing else in my life that I would take back - something that I would actually prevent myself from doing. So this is the choice even if I’m negative, because the worry enough has not been worth it.
Many years ago when I was still a student, I was at my local cornershop and heard a woman being beaten up and shouted to outside. When I went out, she was there but he had gone, it was her partner and they were both messed up on drugs. I tried to convince her to come back to my flat to organise her a place in a shelter or something, but she wouldn’t come. I’d like to go back and try again, as it’s something that still makes me sad to this day.
WRT the women I spent 9 years with: I wouldn’t have avoided the relationship entirely, but I would make sure one of the early break-ups STAYED that way. In light of the fact she now self-identifies as a lesbian, and she never told me about this tendency, I feel that spending nine years with her helping to raise her bi-polar child maybe wasn’t the best allocation of my time and resources. I had the wrong equipment for that relationship. This revelation went a long way in explaining why she ignored me the better part of our last year, though it does little to explain her previous enthusiasm. I still love her and wish her happiness, but she hid something from me that was important, never gave us a chance to talk about it or work it out, and basically wasted almost a decade of my youth. You could argue she did the same to herself, but she did it with more info than I had.
Dear Og, the women I passed up in the interest of doing the right thing for that relationship. None like them have been along since. I haven’t dated in years, and with my recent health issues, I worry that I’ve missed my brief window of opportunity for a lasting, happy relationship.
Still hope I helped her boy. I did more for him than his father ever did. I did more for him than my father ever did for me. After we broke up, a picture of his became a minor internet meme, though thankfully a relatively tame one. I never saw anyone get real hateful with it, which I thought was unusually nice for the internet. Nevertheless, I hope he and his mother remained ignorant of that fact.
That relationship kinda sounds like an episode of Jerry Springer. Almost 10 years of Jerry Springer 
I’d go back to October 15, 1991 and stay awake all the way from DC to Greensboro.
As an aside, I am now holding your responsible for that damn song being in my head! :mad:
After a few hours it turns quite catchy 
Had you asked me this five years ago, I probably would have said that I would have told my cousin “no thanks” when he offered me that first cigarette when I was 12. But, I am now happily married and a father to the cutest little girl ever ( trying to un-depress this thread a little!). I first talked to my wife during a smoke break at the pizza joint I worked at in college. Had I not been a smoker, I wouldn’t have been in a position to chat her up - and probably wouldn’t have gone after a smoker anyway. We both quit smoking after our honeymoon (almost 1.5 yrs ago), so I don’t regret smoking at all.
I guess the only thing I could change with a single decision happened when I was 16. There was 7 of us sitting around a campfire drinking. One guy decided that he wanted a Big Mac, so we all got into a car and drove to McDonalds. We got picked up on the way back and everyone got tickets. Later, I found out that if I had told everyone else to go ahead - I’d just hang out by the fire (which is what I really wanted to do) at least 3 others would have stayed with me. The trip probably never would have happened had I spoke up. Granted, the consequences were pretty mild compared to some, but that’s the only thing I could change with a singe decision.
I would have run away from home after I graduated from high school.
I would not have taken that job, even though the money was good. I was laid off 6 weeks later, and while it’s all turned out OK (I found another job and was only out of work for 3 months, and I’m moving to an even better position in three weeks), it was still a monumental mistake.
If I’d stayed, I might have been promoted and I’d be working with lots of good friends. Of course, that job was at a large insurance company that had some mortgage-backed securities, so they’re gearing up for a round of layoffs soon. And now would be a much worse time to be out of work in my industry. So staying might not have turned out all right, either. And I’m making much more right now. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad mistake, after all!
I would have taken my mom up on it when she said, “You know, you don’t have to do this,” the night before my first wedding.
Alternately, three years later, I would have stayed in Colorado instead of moving back to Illinois. Then-husband was already back here and probably wouldn’t have come back to get me.
September 6, 2005.
I’d have locked my damn computer before going into that meeting.
I’d go back to about age 22, look up my high school sweetheart and tell him how much I missed him and loved him. I still do, but he’s happily married now so it would be wrong to contact him.
Whether or not he would be happier with me (or would’ve laughed in my face . . .) I don’t know, but I wish he had made his choice with all the information at hand.
I would go back to 2nd grade and declined to participate in whatever I was doing that ended with me chipping my front tooth.
I’d have tried to meet Mr. Neville when I first heard about him in 1994. We were both at the University of Maryland then, but we didn’t meet via email until 1997 or in person until I was looking at grad schools in 1998. I think it’s likely I would have gotten into a long-term long-distance relationship with him and saved myself the misery that was my dating life (or mostly lack thereof) in college.
Or I might have gone to a different grad school in 1998. The one I went to didn’t work out so well. If I’d gone someplace else, I might have gotten my PhD in astronomy.
Going to grad school at all was probably a mistake, but I don’t think anything could have convinced me of that at that time. I doubt I’d even have listened to a future version of myself telling me I was making a mistake, I was so determined to go to grad school because the prospect of the Real World scared the poo out of me.
Or I might go back to when I was considering two jobs in 2001, and take the one that was closer to what I wanted to do instead of the one that paid better.
Or I might go back to 2002 and have a small private ceremony instead of planning a big fancy family wedding. I don’t like being the center of attention and didn’t really enjoy the big wedding. I did it because I felt I was expected to, but now I’m pretty sure nobody would have been really upset with us for not having one. And then I’d have some more money and fewer nightmares- I still sometimes have the one where I have to go through another wedding, and I’m very relieved to wake up from it.
The world, or at least the SDMB, would be a sadder place if you had.
I would take the job with the Sydney Olympics in 2000 instead of the longer term job I ended up taking.
I would have applied to the grad schools I actually wanted to go to, rather than the one I did.
I know it breaks the rules, but I’ve bribed the genie to allow it:
I would never have smoked a cigarette.
May 1st 2004.
That was the day I had the accident at work that fucked up my back resulting in my being retired on medical grounds.
I would not have gone into work that day
Recriminations and regrets are the time between asking where I came from and refusing to tell where I was going.