Wrong life decisions you made

Why dwell on the negative, hun?

If you're happy with where you are today, you're gonna be happy with the steps that brought you here.

But, he's not happy because he's stuck in NYC.

....

I was living in Seattle and really liked it. Had a long-term temp job and my own apartment (which was kind of a miracle there). When my lease was ending I had to decide whether to make Seattle my permanent home, or go back to Flyover and think about it. I mean, I could always go back- right?

I don't regret the guys I've dated / had relationships with. I just wish I had ended the relationships sooner than I did. I wasted a lot of time.

Back in the early 90s, I was hired by an international nonprofit organization. Within 3 months of my employment, I was sent to Rome, Italy to work in their office during a crisis that involved helping immigrants forced out of their home country. This temporary assignment turned into a three year stint. Although I had a BF living in my apartment in the US, he couldn't join me because of his career. To be honest, things weren't going very well with him, so leaving felt like a blessing. We did communicate by phone a few times each week, and I got to return to the US for a week every four months.

But, I loved Rome. I loved my job, my co-workers, I loved the city, I loved Italy, and I loved Europe. It was a joy to wake up each morning face the day with a smile. And yes, I had an Italian fuck buddy, just as I'm sure that my BF in the US had his.

At the end of the assignment, I could have stayed on in Rome and worked for one of our partner organizations, but I reluctantly chose to return to the US. After a few weeks back, my BF and I officially split, and I realized I had no other reason to stay. But the window to continue to work in Rome had closed and I didn't have the courage to just go back and try to make it work from scratch.

I tell folks to this day that the decision to return to the US was the worse one I had ever made.

I regret going to Stanford and not Harvard.

I broke up with a guy and he asked if he we could still be friends and I said sure. I broke up with him because besides not wanting to be in a relationship with him anymore, there were tons of red flags that he probably wouldn't be a good friend. And he wasn't. He screwed me over royally THEN played the victim on social media for sympathy and made me seem like the bad guy.

I really regret not breaking up with him and saying "naw, I don't think we are very compatible and need to just go out separate ways".

I regret not going to Cornell Law. Chose NYU law instead. Miserable there.

White carpeting in the living room 🙄

Not putting the top up.

Dating women for 2 decades when I wasn't attracted to women because I felt so horribly rejected by men.

Not studying abroad or teaching English abroad after graduating because my mom pressured me into staying in the US.

Starting a business with my ex. Also, staying in a city I no longer liked, with limited job prospects and where my friends were all moving away, because that same ex wanted to stay there.

Quitting my full time job in 2013 with nothing lined up and no solid plan. I ended up in iffy employment situations and financially dependent on others for several years.

Falling out of touch with nearly all my friends from my younger (high school & college) years. At this point, most have moved on and don't want to reconnect. Thankfully I still have friends I made as an adult.

Not a decision but made for me as right out of graduate school I had a job interview in SF for a position I didn't get. Later I ended up in NYC. I loved SF back then and in fact ended up visiting a lot but not for around the last six years.

I often wondered what my life would be like if I had spent my adult working years there instead of NYC. In some sense SF gay culture was a better fit for me.

What gets me is that both cities are now trending in the same dystopian direction, over priced, devoid of earlier charm, and increasingly lawless and out of control. SF just got there sooner.

Logging on to DL the second time.

I was an aspiring actor about 20 years ago. I had just finished a pilot that I, and everyone involved, thought was going to be picked up. I received a call from a one of those morning-type shows that they had someone drop out and would I like to fill in? I had finished shooting the pilot and said no because I was exhausted.

Now I would say yes. That morning show is still running and who knows what could have become of that gig? Pilot died a quick death.

Moving to Iowa. They gays compete for how stereotypical they can be. The nail painting thing has gotten big here.

I got involved with a guy who turned out to be a psycho. I regret not pushing him out of a window when I had a chance. I could have saved myself years of being stalked online and having my reputation smeared.

The** Oh, dear!

Moving to California in my late 20s and blowing a small inheritance. There was no good reason for the move. I wasn't looking to be an actor or anything associated with California or Hollywood. Just stupidity and seeking some kind of Eutopia. Five WASTED years.

Not buying tons of bitcoins back in 2009.

going to that stallion/mare party in fucking France. They told me it was everywhere, but did I listen ? fuck no. And who could have guessed you could get the syph just by GIVING a BJ ?

Started smoking at 15.

Don't do it.

To choose to live my life as a gay man.

Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien.

I struggled/subsisted in life throughout my 20s and 30s. I took chances here and there and made some good choices, but there were spans of years where I didn't move forward and wallowed. I wasted a lot of TIME.

When I was 41, I had the opportunity to get the fuck out of the U.S. and have never looked back. It wasn't all great, though.

I had a nightmare of a run for three years. But, I learned from it, and it is behind me now. I now know I can get through anything and reinvent myself. No one can keep me down. Even though my body is slowly falling apart (lmao).

I studied Mandarin several years in college in the 80s, but did not study abroad due to parental pressure. I should have taken a year off after graduation and gone to PRC/Taiwan to work on the language. Instead I took a receptionist job for a non-profit in DC because I needed the health insurance (this was before Obamacare and I was dropped from my parents' policy as soon as I graduated from college).

Had I taken the time to obtain functional fluency in Chinese 40 years ago I would have had a completely different career trajectory than taking that receptionist job that paid 11K.

I should have calmed down when I reached Sioux City Sue status as a slut. Instead, I went for the Whore of Babylon gold star level. It took up a lot of my time.

Trying meth

Very bad choice of college. FWIW, I was 17, our high school advising department was a joke, no family to help me because none of them had gone to college, and no internet in 1989 to research prospective schools.

What is FWIW?

Getting married to a woman when I was deeply in the closet

For What It's Worth

I made so many bad decisions in my life and the number one mistake was that I started smoking at age 16 and smoked for quite a few years and then quit for 10 and started back up again. I haven't smoked for the past 18 years and won't have that happen again.

String of bad decisions about countertops.

A month before our wedding, I told my partner of 20 years that I had been fucking around the whole time. And he admitted that he had been too. Desolation and flames.

Damn, r35. What was the point of telling him, after 20 years?

Perhaps....

I didn’t even really like pineapple all that much.

Smoking, drinking, spending money on ghastly clothes, bad haircuts, avoiding the dentist, quitting a good job, not quitting a horrible one, moving to Wisconsin, moving to Boston, dropping out of grad school--twice.

A lot of decisions we make are to be more practical/stable/safe. Risk is... risky. And I think even riskier for LGBTQ people.

I went to a state school in the city but in retrospect I think I should have gone to a small liberal arts school. I think the education would have been better and I did like getting more one-on-one attention from faculty.

Hookups with dodgy guys when I was young and just needed to get off, awful people I let into my life when I had low self esteem and ignored all the red flags.

Stayed in a city I hated, D.C., until I started developing a physical reaction to it ( ulcerative colitis).

PS For any young DLers. If you have a intensely negative reaction to anything, a place a person a job or whatever, listen to your gut initially. Don't wait for the city the person or the job to " grow" on you or some such nonsense.

I have strong intuition, and every time I ignore it, I get into trouble.

Smoking, drinking, drugging, and not flossing. One more: not starting my retirement account early enough!

I wish I didnt waste my youth on being a run of the mill slut. I had the body, and face to where I could have been a successful gold digging whore.

I would guess my list of fucked-up decisions would rival any of yours (seriously!), which is why I'm currently living with my little dog in a trailer in Deplorable Haven, FL on $2100/month of pension + SS.

But you know what they say: don't cry over spilled milk, and hindsight is always 20/20.

Being overly obsequious when I was younger because I was raised in the south.

I admire R46

Sounds nice, #47. You could be living in a tent on Skid Row. Be thankful for what you have- not for what you don't have.

I wasted over 20 years of my life with a man that I don’t really love. He was the safe choice, and has worshipped the ground that I walk on since we met. He lets me get away with murder. As I get older, I wish I had a partner who challenges me. It’s too fucking late now, and if I left him I fear that karma would bite me in the ass and I would end up with an asshole like myself.

Wasting my life with a partner who "challenges me" every fucking minute of every fucking day for 22 years.

[quote] going to that stallion/mare party in fucking France. They told me it was everywhere, but did I listen ? fuck no. And who could have guessed you could get the syph just by GIVING a BJ ?

I thought that party was just anonymous anal...... bottoms lines up wit hoods and guys fucking them? How did you give a bj?

Going to law school.

Freshman year of college, my best friend from high school told me he was in love with me.

I was very much in love with him and had been hiding my feelings because it never occurred to me that he would ever feel the same.

We were supposed to hook up Christmas break, but I got scared and backed out.

I didn't understand that decision then, but have regretted it ever since.

I wish I’d put on muscle in my early twenties rather than waiting till my mid thirties. I’d have gotten more and better partners.

You would have gotten more superficial partners.

And that wouldn't have worked, as opposites attract.

I don't think it's good to dwell on regrets, but I think it's okay to wonder what would have happened if your life had taken a different path.

When I was in high school, I was named a National Merit Scholar. It was written up in the local newspaper, but I seriously had no idea what it meant. I lived in an isolated small town and neither of my parents had gone to college. After high school I went to a four year college but was kind of aimless in my academic career. I graduated and eventually found a career that I loved. It was not until years later that I mentioned to someone that I was a National Merit Scholar, and their response was I could have used that to get a scholarship to an Ivy League school. It felt like a missed opportunity. In retrospect, I wish I had gotten out of my dead end small town sooner than I did.

It would have been nice to go to an Ivy League school or even to a boarding school during my high school years. If I had been smart and worldly as a young teenager, I would have approached my parents and asked, (1) what can I do to make and save some money? (2) How much would it cost to send me to a boarding school?

The only other thing I would have changed from my past is that if I knew then what I know now, I would have been having way more sex when I was a young man. I had a great boyfriend and we had awesome sex for several years, but we were both closeted, and lived far apart so it was hard to keep the relationship going. I wish I had asked him to marry me, and if he had said no, I should have been more active about finding another boyfriend. I had many opportunities to have sex with some hot guys, but I was always too timid to act on them.

R51, exactly my life too

I wish I had come out earlier in life. I was just so scared of the world and so focused on making it in my career that I stayed closeted.

Sadly, in the process, I didn’t really learn how to date. My life is a bunch of hookups and it’s lonely as hell

[Quote] going to that stallion/mare party in fucking France. They told me it was everywhere, but did I listen ? fuck no. And who could have guessed you could get the syph just by GIVING a BJ ?

I thought it was in Berlin

I wish I had gone to university. I've held good jobs, so it's not to get ahead in life or anything — but to simply enjoy those good, lazy, party years. I started working right after high school, couldn't be bothered to study.

Given that stasis is itself a choice (and usually a bad one), I can't think of any big life decisions that I got *right*.

[Quote] I wish I had gone to university. I've held good jobs, so it's not to get ahead in life or anything — but to simply enjoy those good, lazy, party years. I started working right after high school, couldn't be bothered to study.

I wished I had partied some more and been more social. Instead I studied constantly and got a great job—but lost my best years

The guys I avoided shacking up with because class difference seemed overly complicated.

public ivy or party school?

opps!

[quote] It was not until years later that I mentioned to someone that I was a National Merit Scholar, and their response was I could have used that to get a scholarship to an Ivy League school. It felt like a missed opportunity.

R58, my brother was also a National Merit Scholar (scored high on SAT test). IIRC, he received lots of brochures from colleges in the mail. I guess the brochures don't tell you: APPLY FOR A SCHOLARSHIP. Our parents also didn't have college educations.

My brother, also, didn't take advantage of being a NMS.

In the late nineties, I was living in the East Village and was told about you cunts.

I've hated ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL of you ever since.

Wish I hadn't lived my life for others. I was a fool.

R50, I dare you to come and live where I live, surrounded by drunks, meth heads, junkies, and sex offenders -- and yes, a handful of decent people, of which I am one. But there aren't many folks with my level of education (ABD) who live like this. I always joke that I'm the most educated person within a 20 mile radius, and other than the doctor's and veterinarian's practices some miles down the road (who don't live here), I am certain that's true.

I actually am grateful, since I retired at 58 -- but I doubt you would be. I don't know that an obviously gay man would survive surrounded by these people for very long.

Feel free to stop by, though!

R19 What the hell did you do wrong? I moved to California and it was the best thing I’ve ever done. My salary more than tripled.

R10 An off-white couch.

Dating a guy for 8 years who ate and drank like a pig. So much so that people made barbed comments to me after parties and events:

"I would have loved some of those tacos but a few men piled their plates high and went back for seconds before I had a chance."

"It's been a busy day and I was hoping to get one of those sandwiches but it looks like they are all gone."

"That man looks like he is very hungry."

This is the whitest thread topic I’ve seen in forever.

Sipping champagne on a yacht. Moving like Harlow in Monte Carlo…

I’m cracking up at r73.

R74 “I don’t know if I should wear peach or lavender? Maybe a coral? Match my earrings! Irmalinda, get my coffee!”

R77 Thank you. I knew we could be friends.

Wasting too much time caring what others thought of me.

Buying a house in a rural area and commuting in to work. I basically just existed with my partner instead of living a full life. I moved into the city 11 years ago and now have a full life.

I am not complaining, it's just if I could do over, I would have just moved into the city.

My biggest wrong decision was not taking a leave of absence to stay with my Mom for a while. She needed me and I should have been there for her. It is usually the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I think about at night.

Doing a PhD in an small, esoteric field that offered no career opportunities by the time I finished. I suspected the second year into my PhD course work, but plugged along. I turned down a lucrative government position after one year of PhD coursework. One of my cohort took a similar position and has been a well traveled, well paid government employee for 30+ years and he loves it.

I do alright, but I am not, and never was, passionate about my field, which is a huge problem when you think about it seriously.

Also, studying French for all four years of high school and three years of college. Quel gâchis.

Letting a really good guy get away. He was really into me and he was perfect for me, but I was having mental issues and couldn't handle having a boyfriend at the time. I probably should have let him work with me on my issues and we might still be together today.

R83 Probably wouldn’t have happened that way.

Nothing comes to mind.

Thanks to all of you who have posted ... nice to know I am not alone.

I pursued and won a gorgeous man then realized he was a total douche. I wasted years on this asshole.

Taking a full scholarship to Duke, but never applying to Princeton, Yale, or Harvard because my guidance counselor at my private school in North Carolina only told me to apply to schools in North Carolina.

R81 That sucks. I get it. It’s minor in comparison but I still regret not going to my friend’s mom’s funeral. I had a business trip and had to fly. Bizarrely, the flight got canceled that day and was rescheduled to the next day because of bad weather. So the entire day of the funeral I was sitting at the airport waiting around to hear if the flight would leave that day or the next.

As far as my own parents, I was with my father when he died and I’m happy about that. I took very good care of my mom when she was ill but during what felt like the only 12 hour straight period I was away from her during her last three months was when she died. And I still feel bad about it even though it’s ridiculous.

[quote] Also, studying French for all four years of high school and three years of college. Quel gâchis.

You're probably pretty fluent or proficient in French. What's wrong with that? I'd love to be fluent in French.

The Ph.D. thing ... I've been around people (including a sibling) who went through the process. It really seems excruciating. I have an advanced degree and I'm sure I was insufferable while getting the degree. But the Ph.D. people just seem like masochists.

I'm studying for my doctorate right now. I used to think school was fun, and now I kind of hate it, thanks to the elite, detached-from-the-real-world assholes who run the academic system.

R87 made me laugh

Regrets? I’ve had a few.

R92 Well, R88 made me laugh

I went to work for a small company in 1990 and clicked with the owner. He gave me a shot, and I built a service that became the focus of the business. In the process, I was made a partner and gained equity. We were approached in 2000 by a competitor, and sold. The competitor begged me to stay and run the place, but by the time we'd grown it big enough to attract any interest, I hated the people I worked with, I hated the people who worked for me, I hated the clients and I hated the reason that we'd been successful in the end (the real moneymaker was a huge fuck you to a former partner that we did out of revenge, and it was a hit), so I declined. The company has flourished since, and while I've done alright, I would be a lot better off had I stayed.

Bitching about the service at Balthazar. I probably could have hooked up with a hot Ecuadorian busboy had I not.

I went on David Letterman.

Oh god,too many to count. But one of my biggest ones was not letting an heir to a newspaper fortune support me in a style wich would have been far too easy to get accustomed to. I just couldnt stand having sex with him. I dont know how women do it for years and years.I did keep the jewelry though.

When my bf "Jokingly" said out of the blue "Hey, let's be house boys for an elder gay man." I should have jumped in with hole firmly presented! This was the early 2000's we could have gotten some leads here! In all seriousness, my bf and I packed up the car to make a new life for ourselves in Seattle but the fun was in getting there and we blew our load. When he said we had to turn back I should have been more supportive. "Fuck that we can do this! Whatever it takes! do we want to go back to the misery of denying who we are in the midwest? NO. I am a fat whore in Iowa and he is dead.

R67, National Merit scholars are chosen from the PSAT, not the SAT.

My only regret is not spending time with my parents. That is all. And I wish I had the genetics for good looks, but hey I did not win that lottery. Envious of hot white men who seemingly get sex so easily and are so desired. Must feel good. But curious after reading so many posts on this thread. Why is it that most of you gay men are not studying STEM courses and getting good decent jobs in the industry? The jobs that pay well and provide you career advancement? Liberal arts is for people with wealth and trust funds not for people coming from no inherited wealth backgrounds.

R47/senior lesbian sounds like my late lesbian aunt. It’s a vibe that I actually kind of appreciate. She spent her later years drinking and chainsmoking outside her labyrinthine trailer in a bumfuck farming community with her girlfriend until cancer got her in her early sixties. I unfortunately didn’t get to spend a lot of time with her until near the end of her life, but we both empathized with each other for being the black sheep gays of our family. She was a veritable alcoholic and I have never been a drinker, but I bummed a few Marlboros from her at family gatherings, or the few times I visited her house. I miss her.

If you had asked me in 1995, I’d have said throwing the compact while in a heroin/benzo haze. However, I’ve seen my old pal Madge’s recent Instagram posts, so this does not ring true today.

I shouldn’t have married Kris Kardashian. She forced me to transition when the ratings started to tank.

R82 No reason to regret studying French, it's going to be the language of the 21st century.

R89 I've heard that people often die at a time when their loved ones have temporarily left their bedside. It may, deep down, reflect their own preference or a desire to protect the surviving family members. Not something you should still feel bad about.

Not buying Apple stock in the early 2000s when it fell to $12.00 a share.

To all of you who participated in this thread we have a parting gift...

[quote] Taking a full scholarship to Duke, but never applying to Princeton, Yale, or Harvard because my guidance counselor at my private school in North Carolina only told me to apply to schools in North Carolina.

A full scholarship to Duke is nothing to sneeze at. You would likely not have gotten the same scholarship opportunity at the other three universities you named.

In fact, a top guy at my high school got into all the four you named but then chose Duke because he got a full ride (and he came from a family of many children so this was an amazing deal). I believe he did go to grad school at Harvard afterwards.

[quote] Not buying Apple stock in the early 2000s when it fell to $12.00 a share.

I bought Apple when it was low but then sold it at what I thought would be the peak (and financed a great European vacation). It kept rising into the stratosphere even after I sold it though.

Nothing comes immediately to mind.

One of my biggest recent regrets was going into a bathroom with a group of friends at a bar and doing coke. A good friend of mine, who was a mess, surprisingly pleaded with me not to do it. And then refused to give me the number to his dealer. But I got it from someone else. That was five years wasted and high and becoming a different aggressive over the top person. I was a functioning addict. Nothing ever really bad came of it career or relationship wise. I just spent so many years doing coke, blowing through money, scared I could never quit, getting into too many arguments. I probably spent over 20K on it ($100 a 1.5 gram jar and maybe four jars a week) in the course of five years and I did it every day, all day. So much energy goes into getting it, hiding it, covering up doing it. I have such an addictive personality, I was anxious to be without it for fear of experiencing actually craving it - if that makes sense. Like if I craved it that would mean I was a real coke head. But if I always had it I wouldn't have to face that fact. Funny how drugs work that way. It did get me into the bathroom with a lot of curious guys I thought were hot and who were extra friendly when they found out you could supply them some.

But it took moving away from all of my contacts and everyone I knew to finally free myself from it. Fortunately it's super dangerous now with all the tainted product and not the easiest thing to source. So I just told myself don't even try to find it. I guess I wasn't addicted to it, I was addicted to my access to it.

To add on to the National Merit conversation: at least in the early 90s, you got plenty of opportunities from being named a semi-finalist. Nearly everyone then got named a finalist, and on that form you gave your first-choice school. If you won the scholarship, and that school participated, you got the scholarship to that school.

The Ivies did not give National Merit scholarships, so mentioning an Ivy as your first-choice guaranteed you would not win, but they told your first-choice school it was your first choice, so it was a calculated gamble for many students to decide to forego a possible Merit scholarship by trying to grease their chances at a preferred Ivy.

A friend of mine did not get the Merit, but from being a finalist, she won a 5 year full ride at a perfectly nice school in Boston (Northeastern). Someone we know who did win got a 4 year ride to Washington University of St Louis (which he loved, though he hated St Louis). I got into the Ivy of my choice, and while I didn't get a merit scholarship, they took very good care of me with merit scholarships balanced with a minimum of loans (so I graduated with 25k in debt with an Ivy league degree).

If you do well on your PSATs, you'll get a lot of opportunities, and the key is to make the right life decision for you (for instance, if you're going to be happier at a Whittier or a Wesleyan, don't stress about getting a scholarship to Duke or Stanford).

Not moving away to go to college. My grandfather died the year I graduated from HS and my grandmother was talking about following him. Not from suicide but because they had been married for so long and she didn't know how to live without him. So I only applied to a local college. I couldn't get into my major (broadcast journalism) after two years so I dropped out and got a job. I'm doing pretty well career and salary-wise but always wondered what if.

I have 4 siblings and, as Mom's dementia got worse, all the decisions came down to me even though I'm the youngest (but most educated). When my sister died shortly after my Mom's death, I was responsible for taking care of her affairs. My Mom, thankfully, had a will and named her sister as Executrix.

I almost wish I hadn't turned out to be the "responsible" one.

Wow. DLers (who skew towards middle-age and older, based on the informal polling done here) spend a LOT of time thinking about college/university choices.

I attended a small liberal arts college (top 20 at the time) and had a lot of fun. I could have pushed myself a bit and applied to more prestigious universities, but I didn't. No regrets. And of course, I built a career that had nothing whatsoever to do with what I studied in school, like many people.

The importance of college (or even attending one) is hugely overstated in the US, IMHO.

I've said this on another similar thread a while back, but I regret waiting until my late 40s to get psychological therapy for my issues that started during my teen years. I thought I could "fix myself," so I ignored the many nice people who tried to convince me to reconsider throughout all those intervening years. The therapist I found helped me tremendously, and she's why I didn't commit suicide.

^ For people who bang on about what liberals they are (which is fine as far as it goes, obviously), DLers are obsessed with class markers, which is part of why they are harping on about this.

R106 Interesting and makes sense. It also sounds on point for my parents: my mother would have wanted to protect us and my father would have wanted a crowd around him.

Entering into an ill-fated relationship that I never should have allowed to happen. It sidetracked me for a number of years and halted the creative momentum I was riding beforehand. I never completely got it back, and it was my own damn fault.

[quote] Wow. DLers (who skew towards middle-age and older, based on the informal polling done here) spend a LOT of time thinking about college/university choices. I attended a small liberal arts college (top 20 at the time) ... The importance of college (or even attending one) is hugely overstated in the US, IMHO.

People probably think back to college decisions because it happens when young, could probably have involved geographic moves, and involves eventual career. I.e., it maybe changed the entire course of one's life.

You say Wow, why so worried, yet mention that your school was "top 20."

[quote]I almost wish I hadn't turned out to be the "responsible" one.

R114 I hear ya, Cosmo.

[quote]Entering into an ill-fated relationship that I never should have allowed to happen. It sidetracked me for a number of years and halted the creative momentum I was riding beforehand. I never completely got it back, and it was my own damn fault.

R119 I clung to that relationship long after it died and gave up anything remotely creative to try to please an asshole. By the time the relationship ended, I had no energy to start over and became an alcoholic. Bad decisions? I made a few.

Leaving London and returning to the US. I hate where I live now but moving back is impossible.

I get it, r122, but I've since come to adopt the philosophy that it's never too late. Sure, I'm an old man now, but I'm working on doing the things that I wanted to do back then. Who says I can't? I still have enough vitality to make it happen. It might not work out, but I'm trying, and that brings satisfaction in itself. Hope that helps.

I quit a job to work from home when I was too young to manage to work from home. The job I had was great and it would have resulted in a rather large step up had I stayed (It went to my replacement). I lost my wfh job because I abused it.

Here is a serious question for some of you. There are certain people who have always felt "too old" to do something, no matter their age. It is a state of mind, state of being independent of an actual age. I tend to be one of those people. All of us, right now are older than we have ever been. And I tend to focus on that more than other things. I feel life is passing me by, or that I am running out of time even though I have made some bold, big moves in my life, they haven't always panned out like I have hoped. But I am 47 now. I feel old - again, older than I have ever been. And I look back on my life and wish I had done things differently in my 20s, 30s, even early 40s. Tell me what I can look forward to now, or tell me I still have time.

Drugs, drugs and drugs. It lead to every major problem and wrong decision I made. I'm paying for it now,too.

R126 well put and thank you for your honest share. I am not the type you describe. Until I was 50, was the polar opposite. Based on the melancholy and regret you express, I think you should try to shake this feeling of being too old. You aren't even 50. There are lots of things young vital people do that you could do.

Kamala

Paying rent to live in Manhattan, when I could've bought a brownstone in Brooklyn.

OP, I'm curious as to what it is about SF that makes you think you would prefer living here rather than NYC, and why you think it would be difficult/too late to leave NYC?

I grew up in the burbs but have lived in SF my entire adult life. Am seeking validation for staying here and a reminder of why I stayed, but am considering moving elsewhere. I think the main reason is the beauty and diversity of the Bay Area -- and the weather and political climate. I travel to Boston often and couldn't handle shoveling snow in the Winter or the humidity of Summer. But the seasons are stunning! I easily avoid the headline-grabbing homelessness areas that make us notorious for street shit and "lawlessness".

Housing costs are falling. Traffic has improved. Lines and waiting times are shorter. It might be a great time to move here.

Should've not been such a go -a-longer, a people pleaser, hanging with people I had some feeling for because of friendship from youth or relatives, cousins. Led me down many a wrong alley. Thankfully nothing terribly destructive, I did not go too far with these people I've met in life that seem to always find the worst road and take it but they really have been a waste of time when I could've been doing something better for myself.

I regret not moving to SF too. Had always planned on doing 2 years in NyC then moving to SF/CA. Work and family “obligations” kept me stuck on the East Coast and, after 30+ years, never got to live in CA. SF has always seemed like the perfect life to me - I love the physical beauty of Northern CA, the abundant gay life of SF, the liberal politics and the generally happy attitude towards life. I may not have made as much as money as staying in NYC - but the quality of life in SF/NoCal is the best the US has to offer IMO.

[quote] I regret not going to Cornell Law. Chose NYU law instead. Miserable there.

Why are you miserable there and what makes you think Cornell would be better? Do you hate NYC? Law school in general is terrible but I'd rather be in NYC than in Ithaca.

Anyway, count me as another one who regrets law school. Like most of my friends who went to law school, I went because I wasn't sure what else to do, but it seemed like a versatile degree that would serve me well even if I didn't end up practicing. Boy was that wrong. It took me years--in part b/c of the financial crisis--to land in a stable career situation. Had I just taken any crappy job straight out of college I'd have been in a much better position.

In the late 70s R113, there were three types of National Merit Scholarships. Those sponsored by a school such as Beloit, those sponsored by an employer, and those sponsored by foundations. The latter went to 1,000 students nationwide not based on need or college, and were only $1,000. I got the third kind and from my area a majority of such people went to Harvard.

Living in San Francisco for 8 years. The first 5 were great, as I'd never lived in a metropolis before. That city becomes very small, very quickly. The last 3 years were terrible. And that's way before tech came in and ravaged the place. Moved to NYC and have been here 30 years.

r126, every day that anyone wakes up finds them "older than they've ever been"! WTF? 47 is not "too old" for anything, except perhaps for dating guys in their 20's and 30's. But 47 is too old for not having your shit together -- meaning that you'd better start doing what makes you happy right now and/or accepting and appreciative of what is good about what's going on in your life in the present.

Am 62, with major health issues. I'd love to take dancing lessons or go on a backpacking trip to a National Park, or even a day hike in a State Park, but those days are gone. Am grateful that I took the time to do those things when I was younger.

If hindsight were foresight Everybody would be rich.

Producer Jason Blum offered me a job many years ago and I turned it down. Ground floor development exec position. The person who took the job is now a huge producer on studio movies. I did fine in life but I sometimes wonder where I'd be if I had taken it. Oh well.

R113, No. As I wrote, I was a Semi-Finalist, in the 97th percentile. Finalists scored on their PSAT in either the 98th or 99th percentile.

For a Semi-Finalist, it was the end of the road. No becoming somehow a (higher-scoring) Finalist. I didn't have colleges contacting me. I received no scholarship offers (indeed, I was explicitly turned down for one by my local State Representative). I can't say what might have been, because I applied only to one university, the only school I was, and remain 51 years later, interested in. Not Ivy League.

For all Finalists, there were a couple more hurdles to Merit Scholar status. I defer to you on this category.

Marrying a woman.

You're never too old to pursue a dream, to make a radical change, start something new, etc.

My single mother started her one-woman catering business at 60, and her little company is celebrating 4 years today. It earns her enough to keep herself afloat, and while it's hard work, she seems very happy.

Taking my current job. They lied about days in the office, they lied about my title, and then they changed my role entirely after only 3 months. Fuck them.

^^^ Yes, I was in a guest services job when the bookeeper quit. Suddenly, that became my additional duties? Why? I think not. I quit before they batted their eyes twice.

I experienced that very same scenario R144. When I had the gall to ask how much of a raise I was getting for assuming extra duties ,I wasnt a "team player" . When I asked why one of them couldnt assume the duties,crickets. I gave my 2 weeks on the spot,and they let me go after 2 days but paid me for the 2 weeks. They are long shuttered.

^ Reminds me of the time my company hired a young grad as my "assistant". I hadn't asked for, nor did I need an "assistant". I was to teach him all the inner workings of my department to lighten my load. My load was fine, I hadn't complained. The day my young "assistant" started I walked out. I still get chills of glee when I think of my young "assistant's" first few months on the job 😂

I opted for a MS degree before getting a PhD—that took a couple of extra years.

Not cashing out on a savings plan when it was at its peak in January of this year because I didn't want to make capital gains taxes on it. Now its worth 25% less than it was 10 months ago.

Being a dumbass and not taking notice of my career. I coasted along, lazy as fuck, didn't upgrade my skills or my employability.

I should have segued into another, more profitable career while I was young enough to do so, but I was too stupid. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

@r148, Hold on, it will come back. I said the same in 2008. I'm glad I didn't cash out

Why post about the wrong decisions I’ve made? It’s much more satisfying to post critically about the wrong decisions made by others—particularly with a dose of ridicule.

Wrong decisions? I address this to the young brethren, so perhaps, in 30 years, they may not have to be asking this question. Gen Z, you are in a very different world than that of your elders. Your elders (late gen x, boomers, and beyond) fucked up when they gave their generosity, love, and support to the wrong people. Or tried to be like them, and even one of them. They also fucked up when they allowed themselves to be conditioned by media and entertainment, lending veracity to myths and ideals, such as true love and “happily ever after,” only to have it backfire in their faces many, many times.

But the gay men, and this is addressed to gay men, who came out, and identified as gay to everyone around them, and most of all, to themselves. They redefined courage. In addition, they possessed a work ethic, worked two and three jobs, and got the hell out of their houses by 18. They saw education as learning and broadening and self-improvement, not memorizing answers, regurgitating them on an exam, and being allowed repeated attempts until they got the grade of their choice. They didn’t peddle their asses on Instagram and Only Fans so they could earn top dollar for a couple of hours of “work” and spend the rest of their time in the gym or with their heads in a bag of glue. 30 and 40 come around a lot sooner than expected. Rest assured that what worked for you at 21 will not work for you at 45.

Gen z, you have overwhelmingly supportive parents that many of us did not. Yet your parents are over-indulgent and not remotely challenging. The latter does not come with trophies for every effort and coddling for every bumble. They’re showing a fail-safe in their home and money, and not teaching you the value of learning, becoming, inventing, discovering, earning, saving, and creating a future for yourselves in an honorable, ethical manner. The tragedy I see is that so many of you guys lack the intestinal fortitude to identify your true wants and needs, establish goals, plans, and acknowledge that milestones are only achieved in increments, not in a pile of cash that falls in your lap. Hear that, money mules with the ski size backpacks in the gym.

The immediacy of technology, not available to your elders, has inculcated the notion that results are one click away. They are not. You have to work. Parents who didn’t understand this notion have nothing but their own ignorance and limited scope of the world to pass onto their progeny, and the generation loss continues.

Wrong decisions? They cannot be prevented, but they can be minimized. Quash the belief that life is easy. It isn’t. It’s going to take every last bit of guts, blood, and nerve to make it in the world we’re living in today. And the drug taking, drug dealing, and whoring isn’t going to get you there any faster. Be less vain. Be healthier. Open your mind. Learn. Be curious. Ask questions. Develop instincts. Don’t be duped by looks or status. Few of the hotties are going to be giving, generous, life partners. They’ll be your first road to hell. See through the masks. Demand more of yourself. And treat others, Goddamn it, the way you yourself would want to be treated.

It's a very short journey. When you’re 50, if you make it, you’ll want to look back and say there was very little you’d change, and that what you achieved was on merit, without having to deceive, decimate, or destroy anyone else to get it.

Not quitting drinking earlier in my life. As a result, most of my life decisions were made through beer goggles. And it allowed me to mask hidden mental health issues like PTSD, ADHD and OCD. I was 44 when I quit drinking. That was thirteen years ago. I could have accomplished so much more. At the same time, I’m grateful for every day of my sobriety.

But if I had to do it again…I would have listened to my friends back in my twenties and thirties when some of them expressed their concerns over my alcohol consumption. Instead, I got defensive about it and it cost me a couple of treasured friends.

Did any of you successfully move on from your wrong decisions? Please post your comments on the linked thread.

All my bad life decisions sprang from one thing: a lack of self-confidence.

This is what I tell my nieces, nephews, god kids, etc: Even if you don't believe in yourself, act like you do. Take the opportunities that come your way even if you're not sure you can succeed. Sometimes the actions can precede the actual belief. I had so many opportunities in life that I turned down just because I was certain I would fail at them. When I finally did take one of them, it worked out. But not as well, I think, as some of the others would've.

R152 Are you a therapist?

[quote] All of us, right now are older than we have ever been.

I'm no Pollyanna, but you could also say:

I'll never (in the future) be as young as I am now.

R146, did they hire the assistant to replace you (after you taught him everything you knew)?

Not getting that abortion back in ‘72.

Regret can be used to identify what is most important to you.

[quote] It's a very short journey. When you’re 50, if you make it, you’ll want to look back and say there was very little you’d change, and that what you achieved was on merit, without having to deceive, decimate, or destroy anyone else to get it.

r152. This is just a variation of the Golden Rule, isn't it?

Not changing jobs every 2-3 years. That would have put my career on a steep upward trajectory. I stupidly thought my company would appreciate my work more if I showed loyalty.

I know, I know. No need to berate me for my stupidity. I've learned it the hard way.

[quote]I opted for a MS degree before getting a PhD—that took a couple of extra years.

I thought you had to have a Masters prior to a PhD. You mean a person can jump into a PhD program with only a BS or BA?

@r158, Yes, it wasn't hard to figure out that a young grad was starting at a lot less money than I was making. When they started interviewing assistants for me without including me in the process I started looking for a new job. The timing was perfect and I left them high and dry to figure it out on their own. I knew where all the landmines and bodies were buried. I know it took a long time for a newbie to figure it all out

I regret Nothing!!

In a college job I met one of the 50 richest people in the world, a famous name shared with a corporation and a famous collector. I arranged an after hours visit for him and a small entourage and he was very polite and grateful about asking for the favor and quite charming, actually. He thanked me profusely for showing him the place and took back his card to write various additional numbers, saying if he could ever do a favor for me I was not to hesitate to contact him, and further that if I ever needed a job he would find a great job for me, and I didn't like that, he would find another.

I wouldn't call not having pursued the offered favor (he had a secretary write.me to reiterate it and then again at the time I finished university, but I have wondered. Especially when I reflect on all of the jobs I earned on my own merits or the nature of my work which often involved meeting people vastly richer than I could ever be.

What might have been had I followed his advice and gone to see him about a job after college. Having had lots of "offers" that had agendas, his stood out as genuine. I don't doubt that it was just a chance meeting from a shared interest and the fact that he liked me and we had a great conversation of several hours. At the least I might have looked him up and maintained some contact, but no, it didn't happen that way.

Or maybe after he came on your tits r166 he would have taken back his card.

^ just joking R166, but I couldn't resist.

[Quote] All my bad life decisions sprang from one thing: a lack of self-confidence.

Mine too.

Earlier this year I decided to move to Germany, even though my life in the US was just starting to hit its stride. I’m now in a situation where I hate my job and no longer find anything about Germany charming. It sucks.

^ Have you met our German Gay Guy?

R170 interesting you say that. Last year I moved to Italy. I'm actually R126 and it's true when I said I have made bold moves. And moving my entire life to Italy would be it. I am still trying to figure out what my life will be here. But I must say each time I travel back to the United States, I can really feel the difference in lifestyles between the two countries. Life here is daunting just in the fact that everything is new. But it is exciting for that exact same reason. And I am learning that exciting can mean many different things. But I am happy.

R170 What sucks about Germany? I've never been there.

R173 I'm sure one sucky thing is the tacky fashion.

Being born in this shithole country.

Not being born in Österreich. I always wanted to be Österreichian.

Since when is the location of your birth YOUR decision 🤔

Getting circumcised at age 27 because my then boyfriend talked me into it. He liked cut guys.

R163 I assumed that the poster did an MS in a field different from the PhD. There are lots of terminal Masters degrees (especially in professional fields like engineering, business, social work, communication, etc.). Most, but not all, PhD programs confer an "incidental" Masters degree on the way to the PhD. Some schools do this after two years of classes, exams, and a thesis, but others do it after a student passes the qualifying/general exams and become ABD.

R159 But...we never would have had Shakespeare in Love. Or learned about twat steaming. You would deny the world such gifts? Don't be silly.

Senior Lesbian I love your posts. I joined the military and during boot camp my copy of the test we all took to determine our aptitude had the answers pencilled in. As I am mathematically illiterate, I went with those answers. I was told I had the 2nd highest score ever obtained by a Woman Marine at Paris Island. That was in 1971. Because my score was so high, I was assigned to Air Traffic Control and hated it. I wish I’d let nature take its course and been assigned to a specialty less stressful. I might have stayed in the military long enough to get a pension and possibly live overseas,

The summer I turned twenty years old, I had my first sexual experience with a guy which boosted my non-existent ego, so I took the next logical step and became a "sex worker"

It fucked me up sexually for awhile and went all the way to the other extreme where I don't want to be with a guy that I'm not one hundred percent attracted to, which is a hard standard to meet

[quote] There are lots of terminal Masters degrees (especially in professional fields like engineering, business, social work, communication, etc.)

[quote]Most, but not all, PhD programs confer an "incidental" Masters degree on the way to the PhD. Some schools do this after two years of classes, exams, and a thesis, but others do it after a student passes the qualifying/general exams and become ABD.

R180 What universities offer this? It's ridiculous!

I had a crush on a boy at University. But he was not in my programme.

R166, was it Barry Diller, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Mellon, Paul Allen, Gates, Getty Family, Morgans.

Inquiring minds need to know!! I interned for John Paul Getty in my 2 year at Wharton for 6 months. Very interesting man, Genius, totally smart but what a family.

Give us a hint Please

R183, I am not R180, but my husband has a PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania. He didn't go for a masters first then a PhD. A masters was conferred to him on his way to the PhD. The program was a Doctoral program straight out of undergrad.

^ If he had never completed his PhD doctoral thesis, he would still have a masters.

[quote] Getting circumcised at age 27 because my then boyfriend talked me into it. He liked cut guys.

I had all my teeth removed....

To R188, were you in Prison when that happened!!

Trusting my parents to care about my future beyond basic providing (food, shelter etc.).

Trusting my extended family (both sides) to stick around and stay in contact and give a shit.

Trusting my doctors to take my health seriously and treat me with care rather than as a guinea-pig.

Trusting my past teachers to have my wellbeing as a tender young mind as a priority rather than their careers.

Trusting my previous employers to take responsibility for the bare minimum of legally-sanctioned employee safety & welfare.

Trusting myself to have sound judgement in entrusting my precious youth and young adulthood to any of these people or institutions. Too late now, though.

Eldergay here who is still trying to figure out if a college education is really needed, and why. I have an AA degree and got a good beginning job. From there, I moved up to jobs where I was supervising and training college graduates on company matters. I never used any knowledge from my education, so I was trying to figure out the need for an education. Perhaps, higher learning forces you to expand your knowledge, perceptions and attitudes about business, the world and yourself? Does anybody else have any thoughts? I mean, besides it is a job requirement which is often flexible.

R140 the same happened to me with Cambridge (UK). Was a hair's breadth from a full scholarship to read English Literature, one of two final candidates, but was pipped at the post. Found out later that the other student was foreign-born with wealthy parents. So it goes.

In the end, to save face and get out of my town and my parents' hair, I went to some hippy non-redbrick Uni to study something else (Theatre), and it was fine for what it was. A waste of money and time, though, to be honest, as I was too depressed (about Cambridge, and also the state of my general life/health which was poor at the time) and too sheltered to participate and study and engage properly, plus I couldn't relate to anyone there as most of the other students were all urban and from wealthier backgrounds than me. I didn't become worldly and learned, pick up a single useful contact, or even make a lasting friend, though I took some mildly interesting courses with good books, and did improve my confidence with public speaking and performing. The whole experience was a disaster, though I expect it would have been doubly so at Cambridge, so I count my blessings.

In retrospect, I do sometimes wish I hadn't gone to University so young or at that time at all, and if I could do it over, I'd instead go now as a mature student in my thirties. Further, I don't believe many or most teens and early-twenty-somethings are suited or prepared for higher learning, if I'm honest. Most these days are glorified creches for spoiled middle-class kids who aren't ready to grow up or enter the adult world. Higher learning better serves adults in their prime who know a little about who they are and aren't still deranged by hormones.

[quote]But I am 47 now. I feel old - again, older than I have ever been. And I look back on my life and wish I had done things differently in my 20s, 30s, even early 40s. Tell me what I can look forward to now, or tell me I still have time.

R126: I'm 15 years older and long had something of a conservative streak. Dispassionately I can say that I stayed too long in some places, kept jobs too long, held onto ideas and expectations too long, and generally took an easy path where a tougher course would have put me in a better position. There is no shortage of things I might have done that would have benefited me more in some ways, but these things don't weigh on me. Early enough in life I learned to look to the present and the future, and to waste no real time on mulling over decisions not made or made imperfectly.

I learned, too, to be bolder, to say yes more readily, to take on new things. And I came to be grateful for what I have rather than upset with what I do not. Maybe it's a sense of time and the idea that "yes" can offer more rewards "no," that taking on new things is a necessary and rewarding part of life for someone who has lived somewhat guardedly.

If you're lucky, age gives the easy valuation of things as valuable or not. The choice to focus more on the one and less on the other seems a fundamental divider of people. I found a partner, moved countries, learned another language, made friendships, retired early, and spend my days in ways I had not foreseen. One choice emboldens another and that has only turned out well for me. I'm fortunate to be happy and looking forward at a time when some my age are grumbly and resist any change and are stuck reminiscing about things from decades ago, when they were in some state of Gay Prime. If my experience is any indicator, you can look forward to enjoying the present and to making plans for the future, and shedding any vestiges of regret and speculation about "what if."

R191 I am guessing it would all depend on how close to retirement you might be. A college education is like a sieve for future employers. Whether you use your education or not, employers might wonder why you never got one or might just discard your resume all together. It's like putting your real age on a dating app. Whereas you might look 45 when you're actually 60, if you put your real age, there is a whole group of people who will filter you out without even getting a chance to see you. It's unfortunate, but the truth. If you are in a place where you have job security and you are somewhat close to retirement, I would say a college education doesn't matter. But if you think there might come a point where you change jobs, might get laid off or fired, a college education will help you get interviews you otherwise might not.

I think that my generation (I'm 58) was the last for which a four year degree was optional. There were vocational high schools (last two years) that led to well paying jobs for their graduates. Every one of my first cousins went that route and they are now financially comfortable and headed toward retirement, many owning their own businesses.

By the 1990's, the American economy was in full transition to a service economy. Manufacturing left the country, first to Mexico then to China. People with only a high school diploma could no longer find a decent paying job at which they could plan to retire from after 30-40 years. Higher education was the default route, unless you wanted a vocational, blue-collar job. If you wanted a career, you needed to go to college and earn a four year degree.

I see job announcements whose preferred qualifications include a Masters degree with no rational justification. An administrative assistant needs a Masters degree?! For what? Just because hiring managers can ask for it. So yes, a degree (or more) is just a filter. Got one? Your application might be read. Otherwise, the rejection pile.

R80's story is where I'm at right now. I've decided I don't like being a homeowner and can hardly wait to unload this place. It'll probably be another five years, though. It's like an albatross around my neck.

I had two celebrities that were interested in me. One a multi Academy Award nominee, the other a famous playwright.

The first one I didn’t move in with because my dad would have flipped out. The other, when I was a little older, I wasn’t attracted to physically.

Oh, well. If I’d cashed in, maybe I’d have died drunk in a sports car. But my career would have been different.

[quote] I had two celebrities that were interested in me. One a multi Academy Award nominee, the other a famous playwright.

Oooooo, can we have any hints, please?

To R198, we need some hints; was the multi-nominated AA actor Miss Bradley Cooper. She's not that good, trust me!!

What about the Billionaire who wanted u to call him about his "art collection", DL people need to know!!

PLEASE!

R185, R199: None of the names you mention. There are a couple $1B+ art collections and arts patronage in the small family, so it wasn't an invitation to see some etchings of dubious merit.

I have a Bachelor degree in Communications…right now I work at a military base in the front office for two senior officers. The only thing that I do related to my degree is the weekly newsletter. I’m in my fifties now and I have applied for other jobs I believe that I’m qualified for, but no one called me back. I’m also a disabled veteran with PTSD, so maybe a high-paying job, with the higher stress levels isn’t in the cards for me. I do envy those who can handle jobs like that.

[quote]R198 Oooooo, can we have any hints, please?

Uggh. Looking back at those choices makes me feel a little grim. The first was a costume designer. The second was chubby.

In a way I feel sad, as if those opportunities are only open to the young. But the truth is (as I’ve always had a streak of optimism, and the vast majority of people I meet like me) I could get back in those circles again and probably find someone. I’m just fatally unambitious.

^ I don't know, I read your posts, seams to me you've always made your own choices that were right for YOU as a person and not just choosing to take the easy way out. I would be quite proud if I were you

I turned down a lead in NYC with a known theatre company, to continue directing a play in Montclair, N.J. that I'd already started.

[quote] The first was a costume designer.

Ah, so you were having an affair with William Ivey Long! Ha! He is notorious on the circuit for playing with twinks. He grabbed us all in the day.

Has he been nominated for Oscars?

Was it Eli Broad in LA? He is a very nice quiet man, every time I dealt with him; very nice man(I don't know if he is Gay?

[quote]R204 I turned down a lead in NYC with a known theatre company, to continue directing a play in Montclair, N.J. that I'd already started.

Oh no. That [italic]was [/italic]a boo boo.

Attention and career advancement in the arts most often requires a dash of ruthlessness. As we live and learn.

R166 Or it may have all been an elaborate set up had you called…like David Fincher’s The Game.

In my twenties I liked to shove huge things up my butt. Now, thirty years later, I'm still suffering the consequences.

[quote]R191 …still trying to figure out if a college education is really needed, and why. I have an AA degree and got a good beginning job. From there, I moved up to jobs where I was supervising and training college graduates on company matters. I never used any knowledge from my education, so I was trying to figure out the need for an education.

Having a college education puts you (or did put you, in the 20th Century) into a certain strata of society. It immediately got you over the first hurdle of being acceptable, reliable, when meeting strangers. Or to put it more simply, to announce you had NOT received higher learning was met with a simple, “Oh.”

College is also a buffer in the maturation process between being a high schooler and a real adult in their 20s. First apartment, first serious romance, sometimes a first job. Experiencing those things while still in that somewhat protected 4 years of college -that your family usually pays for - is gentler than having to hit the streets and achieve everything all at once on your own.

What I think is impractical is expecting teenagers to choose their life’s work kind of on a whim, without much life experience, and then have soooo much money poured into it. I mean, are teenagers usually known for making sound decisions? I wasn’t.

^^^ Exactly. So much money, time and talent is wasting chasing rainbows. I wish apprentice programs were available like the olden days where you could learn a trade without taking life loans that never seem to go down.

[quote] …still trying to figure out if a college education is really needed, and why.

In every recession, including the last, it's those without college degrees who get laid off first and get hired back last.

College degrees are used as a filter to determine who is a worthy candidate for a job or not. When you have lots of people applying for job, you have to filter them down somehow. A college degree is most often the first filter, whether you like it or not or think its fair or not.

It often doesn't matter what college you go to (avoid the for-profit colleges though--employers treat them as worthless) or what you major in. Just get that BA or BS.

I'm scared the worst decisions I'll ever make are the ones I'm making right now. My husband of 31 years died suddenly two months ago and I am just shattered. I can't imagine spending what's left of my life without him.

boytoy for when you get Alzheimer's, duh.

[quote] I wish apprentice programs were available like the olden days where you could learn a trade without taking life loans that never seem to go down.

We do, it's called the Army. Be All that You can BE!

There's a lot I would change through my mature eyes, but so much happened when I was <21, when I really had no voice or any real ability to advocate for myself.

After 21? Well, I was in love with someone that didn't love me back, but wanted me to be their sidekick....a narcissist, as it were. It took me several years and a few moves around the country following them around to figure that out.

I wish I hadn't let fear guide so much of my life. But the abuse/bullying I experienced when I was young made me very wary of everyone and everything.

More than anything, I wish I hadn't tried to please others for so long in my life, before I decided to live my own life and not worry about what others wanted from me. I am glad to have escaped a life of "shoulds."

My condolences, R214. Hubby and I have been together for 32 years, and I often worry about what I would do in your circumstance. I wish I could give you a hug.

If you want to talk about these decisions, Joe's thread illustrated that DL can be quite a lovely place when it wants to be, and everybody can use a bit of a sounding board once in a while.

Mother always said it was a shame I quit the French horn.

Carrying to term.

Jesus…. [italic]Waterworld!

r140, unless they did things differently in your time, I think you're confusing being a National Merit Semifinalist with being a National Merit Commended Student. When I was in high school, National Merit Commended Students were those who scored within the top 5% on the PSAT (but below the threshold for Semifinalist status). For Commended Students, it was the end of the road with respect to scholarships from the National Merit Corporation, but the vast majority of Semifinalists (of which I was one) make it to Finalist status (mostly by confirming their scores with SAT scores in the same range) and are eligible to win scholarships.

Hang in there, R214. Don't do anything while you're experiencing extreme emotions. I know it's awful, and it won't be easy, but somehow you'll get through this. Please look after yourself.

Most of you have unrealistic expectations. You would still have been you had you made different choices, there would have been different decisions would still have led you back to where you are.

I get what you're saying R234, but you're overlooking the impact that reflecting on poor decisions has when it comes to making decisions today. I certainly learned from the poor choices I made, and sure, if I could go back I would do things differently... recognizing that I would be in a different place today with the pitfalls and unlearned lessons in that timeline.

R222, OMG. Mea culpa. I'll blame it on having Covid brain.

"Commended" IS the term for what I was. They were right--I wasn't so smart! 🤪

Honestly, having children. I was pressured to keep a surprise pregnancy, at 19 years old, by an abusive partner and my toxic family. Obviously it didn't end well.

^^ Awww… well, glad you’re still here and made it through!

A friend of mine confessed that if she knew how much work it would be, and how headstrong bratty the mite would be the moment it shot from the WOMB, she wouldn’t have done it.

The fact that National Merit scholarships are a major point of discussion is funny. Seems like a dated concept. Many schools don’t even require SAT anymore. Does it really matter anymore?

R229 As a university administrator, I cannot wait until our school requires SAT or ACT scores again. They have been optional since 2020 (pandemic related) and the quality of students matriculated in the last two years is noticeably lower than previously. I call them Covid Students and they are – almost to a one – unprepared for rigorous academics. During a meeting just last week, many other officers of the university said the same basic thing. Our admissions VP looked at us horrified at the suggestion to require the SAT again, but there has to be some independent standard or bar to clear. Whatever has been happening for the last three years has to change.

I went to dental school because of family pressures. I hated every second of it. Even practiced a few years to see if that would be better. It wasn’t. Luckily I was able to find another profession within a few years and rarely if ever mention this part of my life anymore.

[quote] and rarely if ever mention this part of my life anymore.

Many of us have false starts and failed attempts we’d rather forget.

[quote] I'm scared the worst decisions I'll ever make are the ones I'm making right now. My husband of 31 years died suddenly two months ago and I am just shattered. I can't imagine spending what's left of my life without him.

R214, sorry to hear. There's a reason why they tell people to hold off, for one year, making big decisions (after someone dies). Be easy on yourself.

r230, we are going through this at an R1 right now. The last two cycles have brought clearly unprepared students (both because COVID times didn't require them to turn in work and because Admissions clearly relaxed standards to let in all kinds of people not just unqualified for our school but for college in general).

This was a remark I received on a student review last semester: "How dare you let this man teach he told me I was gonna fail but I turned in every assignment and yeah not all of them were good or anything but wtf"

You get the idea. A lot of them are going to regret the loans they are acumulating to fail out (and they are failing out).

Not working jobs, networking, or starting to build a career during university when I was living away from my family.

Granted, I was in no fit mental state to work or study at the time, so I have to forgive myself for that. But still I can't help having regrets and sometimes beating up on myself about it. Now I'm 30 stuck living with family (as an elder carer), with no money or job prospects. Hard to see a way out that would create a happy fulfilled existence for me now.

Don't be ridiculous R235. Get busy doing something.

earrings

caftans!

R234 you have my sympathies - and I honestly think most teachers and professors deserve a medal for staying in the profession.

I was an adult student who returned to complete my BA work about a decade ago, and the things that students did, expected and said, were beyond shocking to me. (I have friends who are professors who shared some of their "feedback.")

The worst one was a young girl who came to an English class, never once did her homework, sat and played footsies with some guy in class, and when the professor kicked her out after six or so classes, she accused him of being unsupportive and a bully. Her little "tears and flirt with a man" routine had apparently worked in other classes.

R236 I work at an entry-level job and as a carer for a grandparent, as well as volunteer (to keep fit/out of the house/have something to put on my resume), and all that takes time and energy. Any spare time I'm trying to sleep and exercise and get therapy. What the hell else am I supposed to do? It's not like I know a ton of rich people sympathetic to my situation who want to give me a way better job and a free apartment 200 miles away...

Can the person who lives in Germany elaborate upon what they hate about Germany? Just curious because I was thinking about taking a job there.

Couldn't you get a home health care nurse to visit grandparent? I believe Medicare covers that.

@r240, Start a thread, "What's Wrong With Germany?" I guarantee you'll get a 150 answers

R234 I'm at an R-1 also. The "you have to pass me" mentality is rampant.

Americans, forget about living in Germany. You won’t do well with the language, English only gets you so far, the paperwork is choking, the rigidity of the country gets old real quick, and they do not like Americans.

[Quote] As a university administrator, I cannot wait until our school requires SAT or ACT scores again.

You must know then that the only things the scores correlate to is how well the student will do the first year in college. Also rich kids get tutored in how to do well on the test.

R244, plus you will always be thought of as an outsider.

Becoming a Russian troll on DL

I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and kept going....

Coming here today.

Not pursuing international volunteer opportunities after I finished college.

R217 My younger life was guided by fear and the abuse I received from my parents. I think we need to be gentle with ourselves for lost time or missed opportunities. I do think about them from time to time,

r251 I'm so sorry. *hug*

Thank you r228. That is very kind. I definitely sympathize with your friend too.

Dating men and allowing them to have sex with me when I'm not sexually attracted to men because I actually hated myself that damn much, internalized my family's opinions/beliefs, and wanted to be "normal." I basically used sex with men as a form of self-harm. Not only did it waste my time (not theirs, they couldn't even tell I was dissociating the entire time nor did they give a shit), but it took years to mentally, physically (due to multiple injuries), and emotionally recover from.

R252 Thank you.

Not checking with the Propmaster.

R254

Letting a guy fuck me bareback after he swore up and down that he was HIV neg

[quote] Americans, forget about living in Germany. You won’t do well with the language, English only gets you so far, the paperwork is choking, the rigidity of the country gets old real quick, and they do not like Americans.

But it's very clean. If there's anything Germans hate, it's a mess.

College is really the only thing I got right in my life. I was a mediocre student the first year and a half in high school, but I decided to prep for the PSAT sophomore more and ended up scoring the equivalent of something like 1430. That spurred me to take high school more seriously (it generated a lot of attention). I brought my grades up and eventually was accepted to Berkeley and Virginia despite never really getting my GPA to the level it should have been. The positive upwards trend along with killer test scores saved me.

I graduated summa cum laude from UVA, took a year off and putzed around Seattle, then pulled another hat trick with the LSAT and got accepted to Northwestern Law. Moved to Chicago and proceeded to lose all drive and motivation by my second year. I dropped out halfway through my J.D.

I stayed in Chicago, because those Sundays at Crobar stoned on ecstasy were too much to resist. I basically quit law school so I could party, is what happened.

Then I had a few scrapes with the law because of drugs. Eventually, I pulled myself out of that trap, but not before picking up an actual felony record and losing the person who turns out to have been the love of my life. Naturally, the conviction made it hard to find a job for YEARS.

Over time, I was able to overcome that stigma, but by that point, seven years after dropping out of law school, I was well behind my peer group and just sort of existing, plodding along at age 33 in a job that paid $47,000.

Eventually I stumbled into an IT job as a database administrator before being hired by Accenture as a traveling technology consultant. I was told when I was offered the job that my degree from UVA is what kept my file from going into the reject bin.

Now I’m doing well, making about $230,000 last tax year at a large tech firm in Boston.

But I wasted all or my 20s and a huge chunk of my 30s. I wish I had just taken law school more seriously, even if I never really wanted to be a lawyer. I could have avoided so much heartache.

On the other hand, thank God i finished college. I would probably have nothing if I hadn’t come through that with a degree.

R241, I'm not r235, but I do know the answer is "No, Medicare doesn't."**

.**Unless the elder patient meets very specific criteria, and even then any help has a time-limit. Just like Medicare pays for 100 days of nursing-home care.

How do I know? I just read the official Medicare section on Home Health Care.

R261 I’m R235. Interesting to hear about Medicaid and what they offer. As it is, I’m in Britain, and the NHS atm isn’t offering much better, especially in the wake of COVID and government budget cuts (which look set to get worse).

All we get is an aide/social worker ‘looking in’ a couple of times a week, not staying or actually doing any significant work. It’s scandalous. Plus, you don’t get any worthwhile intervention unless your elder is foaming at the mouth and throwing faeces around and screaming and threatening neighbours/disturbing the peace etc., so if you have a forgetful or malicious or quietly troublesome elder on your hands you don’t get any help (same way as you don’t get affordable help with a quietly psychotic child, I guess).

Even the Carer’s Allowance benefit is a penury, a fraction of what one would get for offering the same service to an elder in France or Germany. Which is why people in Britain are often forced into a position of surrendering their relatives to ‘care homes’ that are more like abusive asylums run by moneygrubbers—there’s no time or money or support to do anything more ethical. It makes the notorious Shady Pines of Golden Girls look and sound like Paradise.

^forgot to add that, unless the next of kin to the elder (in my case, my mother and her rich emigre dickhead brothers who do nothing) agree to put the person into care, then it can’t easily be done. There’s no dropping people off on the door and driving away, that’s a prosecutable offense of wilful negligence.

Really wish more older people would be realistic and compassionate and fair about the arrangements they make for their twilight years, instead of expecting their single gay grandchildren to give up their life to fix it all.

[quote]Really wish more older people would be realistic and compassionate and fair about the arrangements they make for their twilight years, instead of expecting their single gay grandchildren to give up their life to fix it all.

I really wish more gay adults didn't fall so easily into the role of pushovers/can't-say-no-caretakers. It's all based on the assumption that gay men aren't doing anything worthwhile with their lives anyway, so why not be free domestic servants.

R264 then who else is going to do it? As I just said, there are laws and punishments for just abandoning someone under your care or a relative needing your help in the U.K. It's not right, but it's just how it works here.

Fuck it, maybe like my cousins did I should just marry and have kids in the next few years to get out of it, before my fertility window closes (I'm lesbian not a gay man btw). I don't really want a husband & family and am not maternal, but clearly there's little other recourse in my case. Still, many kids leave home inside of 16-21 years, and there's always the option of divorce. If only I knew a wealthy sickly middle-aged closet case who needs a beard and a womb....

Call your mother's bluff and leave your grandmother, unless you are doing this voluntarily out of affection for your grandmother. In any case, it is a situation that one remains in by choice.

Two major ones that relate to laziness and low self-esteem.

1. Not transferring colleges. I ended up at a non-name Christian college in the south. I'd never lived in the south but found it, or maybe my freedom, charming. The school was small so there weren't loads of options to make friends. But I bonded with my roommates. High school was really lonely, so I placed these new friends, none of which I talk to today, over my plans to transfer schools. I was just so starved for attention and social interaction. Of course, I had to continue to play the closet game, despite my teenage promise to come out of the closet. I wasted four years of my hot young years single, and clinging to a few friendships because I'd never had even an ounce of that type of connection in my teenage years. I should have transferred to a larger school as planned, gotten he degree I really wanted, and just have a more varied experience. Instead I was scared to leave and let "good enough" be the marker of my 20s.

2. Staying in the south. I remained in the same city as my college for an additional four years. Even getting dragged into the Protestant church scene. Bible studies and prayers. All knowing I was gay and didn't want this life. I was also bored and miserable. But I had my best friend with me a as a roommate. Truthfully, I also lusted after him.

I came out to a friend from bible study, he was in the Navy and told me to stop wasting my life and make a change. He encouraged me to leave and live my life. He was my lifeline, and I was his since he was suffering through PTSD and was getting his life back on track. I can't thank him enough for breaking me out of my trance and giving me the nudge to move on.

I moved to Chicago, have the dream job I've wanted for years but kick myself for delaying all of these experiences until I was 27. Plus, the money is much better in Chicago so I could be owing a condo right now, and be a manager or director at my job if I had just moved up here and started at 22 rather then 29.

R264 and of course, the cousin to that sentiment, the office frau who decides "Oh, so and so can stay late/fill in for me/do all my work. He's gay and single but I have five crotch droppings and I can't possibly stay until my defined end of workday at any point, because I have CHILLLLLLDDDDDREEEEENNNNNNNN!"

R267 with all empathy and respect, I can't imagine willingly moving to a deep South sort of place or a Bible college....unless that was in your family background?

Anyway, good for you that you got out.

Oh for heaven's sake, OP, nearly all of them.

I survived and grew to be old, rich and happy. Everyone makes terrible decisions and then you get yourself out of them. With any luck we don't make the same ones again. It's the Circle of Dumb.

R269 it technically wasn’t the Deep South but still the south. And everyone was nice enough but again I was in the closet so that made it a lot easier.

I just don’t think I had my life together and was stilted from unknown realized trauma in high school. I also just couldn’t read people that well because lasting friendships was just weren’t something I was used to.

As noted, I moved on and have a better life in Chicago. Just need a man.

I regret not transferring to college that had a better social work program.

To the posters who feel / felt pressured into taking care of elderly parents: are you the only child or do you have siblings? If you're the only child and your parent was reasonably good to you, then it's a no-brainer (IMO). You have to take care of that parent, to the extent you can. If you have siblings, then you should be compensated ($$$) if you spend more time with the parent than the siblings do. In this day and age, everybody should understand that just because you're gay, single, no children, doesn't mean your time is less valuable.

I live in NY and my straight siblings, in California.

When looking for an assisted living situation for my parents, I researched placed and ultimately sent my mom to one...in California, near my siblings.

Just in general, I had no confidence in myself, I was so afraid of failing. I wish I'd done something bold like traveled to Europe or moved out of Ohio to the big city. I wish I'd viewed life more in terms of what I had to gain rather than just what I had to lose.

Bravo, R274!

Americans seem obsessed with college and the college experience. Move on, people!

I think Americans are more obsessed with the high school experience actually. It was DL that pointed out to me how many American films revolve around high schoolers and how foreigners don't understand the obsession. I now actively avoid any movie whose plot revolves around high school aged kids.

Not trying new things when I was younger and had fewer responsibilities. Things like travel, new hobbies, going to parties and talking to more people

Since Beto and Abrams still haven’t won major races, what will be next for them?

cabinet positions?

^wrong thread

R280 R281 Actually it is a wrong life decision made by Texans and Georgians.

And the wrong thread post isn't by the poster, this has been happening to many people here in recent weeks.

Trusting the wrong people. Like my own family who screwed me over money.

being too naive. believed that certain people wouldn't do this or that etc...

remember folks, always put YOURSELF on top of the list.

R283 yes! Am struggling/have struggled with the same, undoing those years of formative cultlike brainwashing and expectation that 'family will always be there for you' and 'friends never let you down' and 'this [company/institution/club/clique/church] is a real loyal family who show up', etc.

But I'm really finding it a challenge to trust anymore, after being fucked over or forgotten or exploited. How can one proceed with a healthy adult social & love & family life, expecting people to turn or walk away every minute? It's something I haven't really found peace with or get my head around, and fear I never will.

I'm an old man now, and thankfully I have never made any seriously bad life decisions. I've been lucky, and fortunate that I had some of the best training one could find. And I was smart enough to listen to and follow their advise, even when it was not what I really wanted to hear. But there are things I've done in my past I learned later were exactly the wrong things to do. Mainly it was allowing certain people who turned out to be toxic and/or duplicitous to get too close to me. That was totally my fault for falling for their charms. I'm glad I learned many years ago what bad decisions I had made with some people, and one by one cut them all out of my life.

I used to be ashamed of some of the things I did in my earlier life in the search for love and lust. But a very wise man showed me years ago that when it comes to that area of life one should never be ashamed if you didn't hurt yourself or anyone else. Now I can look back at all those experiences with great fondness rather than cringing at the thought anyone I love would ever find out.

Getting into football (soccer).

Fell into it as a hobby ironically and as a way to distract from C0VID anxiety/insomnia/general health issues, now I'm a legit unironic fan against my better judgement. I miss three years ago when I knew nothing about this sport and wasn't remotely interested or invested in it. Once you attach emotionally to a team or some players or a coach, it is curtains for you, you're suckered in and there's nothing you can do but keep following. The highs and the lows.

Life has taught me that the only person you can trust is yourself.

Choosing nursing over engineering as a second career.

[quote] Life has taught me that the only person you can trust is yourself.

MARY!

I've posted this in various forms before, but I regret putting so much effort into freindships with straight females. Sure, we had loads of great times traveling and clubbing in our younger years, but now, in my late 40s, I'm barely a blip on their family-focused radars. Sometimes, one of them will call me, but only when they have a zoom in 5 minutes or are out walking the dog. Even then, I can hear hear them tapping away on their keyboard or giving distracted answers to anything I say.

All that effort, all that love, all that support – all for nothing.

Your experience is not unusual, R290 for a lot of gay men coming of age in the past 30-odd years.

The "gay bestie" phenom for young men and straight women is widespread. But it's also been culturally reinforced through LGBT literature (eg, THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION) and movies and TV (WILL & GRACE, a hundred gay indie movies). We seemed to assign it a value higher than other friendships (including gay men's friendships with one another) and sentimentalized it beyond belief. That was then.

I think some straight women are terrific. As a middle-aged gay man, they're no longer the primary recipients of my time, love, and attention.

The DL

Getting involved with DataLounge.

one of the wrong decisions I made was dating a man who took over 2 hours to get ready to go anywhere. drove me nuts.

r290, I'm going through this pretty profoundly myself with a close friend from college who has slowly jettisoned multiple of us (but not the gays with kids) from our circle, and I've heard through the grapevine that she is using some coded dog whistles like "We have different values" or "Things are just different when you have kids." Fuck her.

She's not the only straight female who has dumped me or other gay friends in the last few years, but she's the one who hurts, because we were so close once. I should have seen this all coming: 19 years ago, she explained to me after I flew in to see her and her newborn baby that her parents didn't want me to be godfather since I "might not be around" as the kid aged. Apples never fall far from the tree, and her parents and their upper middle class homophobia should have been a red flag. I put in all the effort for another 5 years while she only had 5 minutes here, and never a text, and they would come to my city and not alert me they were there because "it's family time."

Her oldest is 19 now and totally smells cookies. She's going to fall apart when he comes out to her, and she's going to have no proper support system. I feel bad for him, but not her.

I think new moms pull back from many friendships, with all sorts of people. They just don’t have the time.

Being a mom is exhausting. I’d never be a parent. I resented that my sister’s time and attention switched from her (formerly close) siblings to her kids, but it’s perfectly natural.

That may be so r296, but someone upthread clearly stated that their friend caved in to their parents by jettisoning him as a potential godparent because they thought he wouldn’t be around enough because of his lifestyle.

Interesting because I think most straight men wouldn't dump their friends after having kids. Then again men, in general, put less effort into maintaining friendships.

Every single decision I ever made. And probably will make.

All childless people, gay or straight, get dumped when their friends start breeding.

r300 I don't think childless people grasp exactly how much of a person's time is consumed by their kids the second they have them; especially when they're small and school-aged. I don't have kids either, but I'm the eldest of 5 and the age gaps were large enough for me to babysit every last one of them.

Even THAT little bit of time I took watching them barely scratched the surface of how preoccupied you get with kids. If anything, once I started babysitting them I realized how much of a problem I was for my parents just for being born. They literally didn't have a life. In fact, none of our parents had lives when they decided to have us. Did you notice that most of your parents' friends were also parents? How many childless friends did your parents hang around when they had free time?

No really. How many?

I agree to an extent R301,but I was friends with several women for many years,involved with their kids,part of the family ,UNTIL I had 2 heart attacks in a 3 month period. Then those bitches were vapor. Only one cared enough to stay friends. Then she died of lung cancer. She was my last straight girlfriend. Oh it hurt when I was ghosted,lots of bitter feelings. Ultimately I came to appreciate them for showing me the truth. I had one reach out to me on FB after 15 years,trying to act like no time had passed. I shot her fake ass right down. I used to love women. Growing up all my friends were girls,I never had a problem with women.Even old bitches that hated everybody loved me. They have changed,and not for the better. Middle aged women are just horrible now. Young ones too.

[quote]People change and forget to tell each other.

(Lillian Hellman explains it all)

What's the bigger crime: changing? forgetting to tell that you changed? putting all your eggs in one basket? being trapped by past expectations? wanting too much of friendship? expecting your friends to always be the fun party friends they were when you met?

R298 they also put less effort into their kids, let's be real. No need to spend less time with friends if you aren't putting more time into kids

R301's paean to parents leaves out the bit where women expect gay men to drop everything at any given moment because, being "childless", gay men should be grateful for the scraps of time that are given from the table.

I regret most of the "friendships" with straight women. They took up a lot of time when that time should've been invested elsewhere, were total cock blocks, never helped out when I needed it, were exceptionally boring, and now won't leave me alone years later. They always try to reconnect every couple years (some text ten years later acting like they're doing me a favor). I wish I had been distant yet polite and never got involved with them.

I wish I'd gone for a career in the music industry while I was still young and hungry. I was a talented musician when I was younger (I'm still good and do paid side projects here and there, but I was REALLY good about 15 years ago). I just had low self-esteem from being poor, gay, and not conventionally attractive. There weren't too many gay musicians then, and I was terrified of being as broke as I was growing up. Chances are still very slim that I would have actually made it, but instead I just stayed in my home town, racked up university debt, and am now working full time for very little money anyway. :/ I'm 29 and only just taking proper steps for it to happen, I let that toxic combination of fear and laziness rule me for too long.

***

Re: the straight female friends thing, I am STILL trying to get out of the nightly 2hr phone conversations with my straight female girlfriends who seem to have lost all their personality traits except for obsessing over the straight men who treat them like shit. I am not sure I can put up with it any longer. They don't seem to care at all about my life, and I find I'm just filling the duties like intimacy and emotional labour they would ideally have a boyfriend to do (minus the sex). I'm 95% sure with one of them that if she got into a relationship again I would maybe hear from her once every 3 months at best, I'm probably just a placeholder for now... (don't worry, cutting that people-pleaser side of myself off is next on the list).

R307 hits at the core of the gay male-straight female relationship dynamic, to my mind at least.

I have 3 close straight women friends of 40 years who are an exception. We were friends in college, read the same books, had a lot of overlap in our academic studies, listened to the same music, had similar tastes and interests. We were never a lonely hearts club, a let's talk about boys club, a "distract me from the awful man I'm dating by going to the gay bar and getting drink and loud" club.

I also had more casual friendships with women where, like a snake shedding a skin, they dropped all their friends and made them anew each time them took a new boyfriend or husband. And met a share of straight women who fleetingly mistook me for the "fun gay friend, " for, you know, shopping and lifestyle advice and such.

I don't know why gay men think men are good for blowjobs but for little else. Make some male friends, for fuck's sake; fuck them first if you have to. Having no male friends seems a recipe for disaster (as many stories here attest). The old notion that gay men and straight women have something special in common is overstated to say the least. I just never saw the natural link and never found that it was easier to talk with women than with men. Male friends are more constant, more honest about why they chucked plans with you and quicker to forgive and forget when you do it to them.

Marrying/coupling off usually takes a toll on friendships, male and female, but especially from the latter. Friends aren't guaranteed for life, but too many people have that unrealistic expectation, and also the expectation that friends for a tit-for-tat exchange of favors. People forget that their friends are supposed to give them pleasure by their company, and vice versa. They stop doing that and then wonder why it's tough to find someone with Tuesday off to drive them to their colonoscopy.

Regretting the past causes depression, worrying about the future causes anxiety.

Can't decide if doing nothing and not working and hermiting during the 2020-22 COVID times was a good or bad choice. It kept me well and safe, but now there's yet another giant hole in my social life and my resume (had depression pre-COVID that kept me out of the fulltime career & dating world). It's getting harder to come up with plausible lies to explain why I basically don't do anything.

I should have never accepted that transfer to Atlanta.

[quote] I wish I'd gone for a career in the music industry while I was still young and hungry. I was a talented musician when I was younger (I'm still good and do paid side projects here and there, but I was REALLY good about 15 years ago). I just had low self-esteem from being poor, gay, and not conventionally attractive. There weren't too many gay musicians then, and I was terrified of being as broke as I was growing up. Chances are still very slim that I would have actually made it, but instead I just stayed in my home town, racked up university debt, and am now working full time for very little money anyway. :/ I'm 29 and only just taking proper steps for it to happen, I let that toxic combination of fear and laziness rule me for too long.

R307 sit by me twin!

Was the same, but with writing (poetry and short fiction). I graduated highschool with everyone thinking I'd be an award-winning poet, novelist and/or scholar. I was winning prizes and contests, getting mentored, meeting people and on the right track. But I'm from a poorer rural background, with low esteem and not pretty, plus I come from a family of selfish manipulators who have supported me down. It took one relative getting sick, one big knockback from a University I desperately wanted to go to, and a round of bad prescription drugs to collapse all my confidence into dust, and destroy what I worked through my teens for. It broke me. Still I went to higher ed somewhere else (that debt! ugh) and then tried to get jobs, but ended up back in my hometown working entry-level, no self-worth left and wallowing in shame at being an unaccomplished nobody who failed to live up to my potential, while all my classmates overtake me. Since COVID, I have become even more reclusive and reluctant to get out there and try again, meet people, pick up a pen. The most I can manage is fanfic here and there, because it's low stakes and anonymous. I don't even know if I'm any good as a writer anymore--perhaps the ring rust is permanent. Wish there was more support for people like us, formerly 'gifted' kids who were gaslit and abandoned.

Atlanta sucks. Soulless city. Lived there for two years. Glad to be back in DC.

I fell in love, at 18, with a man, in Catholic college. He was 21. I was too afraid to accept my sexuality. I was so deep into the closet, and I was a virgin. We were friends, but he was graduating and moving to another state. When he said goodbye, I was stunned. He clearly moved on. I wanted to remain as friends. We never saw each other again. For many years, I thought about him.

About 6 years ago, decided to reach out to him. So, I searched on Facebook. It was a Saturday. I discovered that he died 3 days before, on Thursday. I was shocked; he was only 56. I wished I had reached out sooner.

I went to his funeral mass and burial about 150 miles away. He was such a sweet and beautiful man. It's the deepest regret of my life.

I will always love him.

A few years later, I visited his grave. I brought red and gold flowers; they are the college colors. I talked to him, and told him I'll always love him.

To this day, I light a candle for him, before mass.

R314, that was heartbreaking and beautiful.

R314, so, was he gay?

R314 sorry to hear that. Though your friendship ended and your love went unrequited (or at least unconsummated), what you had is still worth so much. The fact that you felt the love you did is enough.

r307 As a fellow musician in the same boat (who was beginning to wonder if I actually typed this post myself while on Ambien) I can attest that a large portion of our problem probably has to do with two factors:

1) Being classically trained turns you into a overly self-critical perfectionist who becomes overwhelmed with imposter syndrome whenever they actually start any semblance of work as a musician.

2) Having at least one of these types of mothers:

^ And then the existence of this type of shit:

Didn’t listen to my parents enough…

Listened too much to my parents for too long.

Agreed. ^

My parents, god bless, were neither bright nor successful nor particularly happy in their lives. So why in the world did I follow their example?

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

^^that should have said--not getting my nails into a star footballer when we were both kids, so he had to marry me and cut me in on the enormous bag. Now I'm out of the age bracket to WAG, though I could conceivably become a second wife/mistress if I get aggressive and also very lucky.

[quote]Marrying/coupling off usually takes a toll on friendships, male and female, but especially from the latter. Friends aren't guaranteed for life, but too many people have that unrealistic expectation, and also the expectation that friends for a tit-for-tat exchange of favors.

r308 100%. Like I said, I don't have kids and am single. I wouldn't dare get upset at my girlfriends who have now basically become ghosts because they're married with kids. Mostly because I just look back at how busy my own mother was with us and how very little free time she had to just hang out with her own friends. I didn't notice it at the time but as I got older I realized, yeah, she spent most of her time working and taking care of us. And it was worse because she was by herself. The mother is usually expected to be the primary caregiver of the kids and even when married, men don't really sacrifice as much of their social lives as women do, although they, too, take a hit.

I feel like gay men don't get this because you're men and are socialized as such. Women are socialized to basically absorb our whole identities in our children if we ever have them. Early separation of children from the mother is even proven to be more detrimental to a child's development than early separation from the father. It's just...different.

But again, men lose their free time when they have kids, too. All in all, I don't bother my friends who are coupled off with kids and get mad that they don't have time. Of course they don't have time. Kids are a fucking nightmare.

Going to Stanford. I'm from the east coast and was a slightly snarky, dark, intellectual type whereas Stanford was filled with anti-intellectual jocks and children of the Very Rich and so on. I made few friends and really hated my time there. Now I'm older and envious of my friends who went to smaller or more interesting schools and have lifelong friends from those years.

I only went there because it was prestigious. I learned that going for stuff like prestige is one of the biggest mistakes in life. Do what's right for you, not what you think impresses others.

Reading the first 11 replies to this thread. (Not going any further). Sheesh. TMI...

Giving my drug addict brother second and third chances.

Hes your brother,you had no choice. In the end,the fact you loved him is all that really matters.

Many people don't deserve love. My regret is wasting time loving people who didn't deserve it.

take a life insurance policy out on him.

R331 bitch you are cold as ice but I like your style.

[quote] Women are socialized to basically absorb our whole identities in our children if we ever have them.

I think the point being made is that this is not a positive thing. Maybe your kids don't need four different after-school activities and trips to the museum and the zoo every weekend. Maybe your kids won't end up homeless or addicts if they spend 2 or 3 mornings or afternoons a week at a childminder's or a daycare. I don't think previous generations of parents thought that this was all necessary.

I didn't realise the extent to which women shamed each other over not doing enough for their kids until i discovered Reddit. WTF?

R333 my eldest female cousin is like this, hyperscheduling her children and scampering around after them. And my aunts (not her mother) were the same with my younger male cousins. Even my own mother had a tendency to smother and try to micromanage, til I told her in my teens to back off. It seems to be the disturbing norm these days.

Why I couldn’t have kids, I’d surely get Harper Valley PTA’d over the fact that I just left mine alone to get in with things over 50% of the time.

Yeah. I mean, my mother was always a very good mother to me and I had my share of activities and outings and so on, and she gave up work for the first few years. But then she went back to work part-time (to keep active in her career rather than for strictly financial reasons), kept up with her interests, travelled regularly to see extended family, had friends round for coffee.... I had to get on with it myself a lot too, sadly as an only child this meant i could be quite solitary. I went to nursery regularly, and I can't imagine anyone said anything negative to my mother about it. But now I read crazy stories, like on in an advice column about a woman getting shamed by cliquey stroller bitches for putting her kids in nursery 2 days a week so she could have a part time photography business. I genuinely couldn't believe it - how fucked up.

Anyway, bottom line: parenting is surely very hard, but after the age of about 3 or so you can maintain your own separate life if you actually want to.Giving up friendships entirely is a choice.

R301 you are generalizing for certain social/economic classes. Not all. And certain cultures. Cultures with multigenerational households have adults available to free up time so mothers and fathers can do other things. Such as work.

From the upper middle class, on, in USA, people have wealth to buy help with child care. Nannies are routine in professional families with 2 working parents, for example.

In many European countries there is day care and state funding direct to parents, per kid.

Uggh. I hate how a thread about gay men and their life decisions has been co-opted by self-important breeders and their priorities. Much like the rest of this culture.

But this is DL. So fuck that, I say.

^Agreed. Don't care about their bullshit.

r337 Gay men were bringing up their asinine decisions to be friends with straight women and then whining about the fact that once these straight women have kids they become scarce in their lives. Maybe stop getting so emotionally involved with straight women in the first damn place?

Once women or men get married, straight or gay, they tend to gravitate towards other married people and associate with family oriented friends. It's not realistic to expect friendship to remain the same once they find their life mates.

[quote]Wrong life decisions you made

Living this long.

[quote]Maybe your kids don't need four different after-school activities and trips to the museum and the zoo every weekend.

r333 I don't have kids, but I don't bother telling my straight and/or coupled-off friends with kids what they should and shouldn't be doing for their kids and then getting pissed because they've "forgotten about me" (which they have...because they're busy as hell). I just stay in my lane and keep it moving. I don't expect people to stick around and be there for me forever. People always leave. I learned that lesson when I was a child and navigate my adult life with the expectation that people will not always be there. I suggest others try it. You're less disappointed that way. Trust me.

R342, in addition to expecting that people will always be there for you, remember that it's important to test their devotion at every turn!

I don’t really want to hang out with my old friends’ bratty kids. If as empty nesters my sometime friends regain their former cool selves maybe we’ll reconnect, but not while there’s kids around.

After 29 years at the same telemarketing job, Im afraid my boss might retire soon and close up shop. I dont have a degree, so at my age I dont know what Im going to do.

R345 so you've been working the same job since I was a baby jfc :/ dunno how people do that, I'd kms out of sheer boredom

Good luck though mate, honestly, hope it all works out despite the downturn, and something comes along that changes things for the better

[quote][R345] so you've been working the same job since I was a baby jfc :/ dunno how people do that, I'd kms out of sheer boredom

Did this really need to be said to this person? It'd be one thing if you verbally said it as one could write it off as diarrhea of the mouth, but you actually sat here, typed this out, and actively hit 'post.' Who raised you?

I don't know, it seems most of my adult life is spent working out ways to not kms from boredom.

IDK, my BFF Jill?

R342 it was just my passing comment on the zeitgeist: chill. These things are worth discussing even if only on an out of the way internet forum.

On top of being a chain smoker, my mom did lots of stuff not related to being a mom. She did oil painting, she read books, she played cards, etc.

Staying with my partner for over 20 years.

He’s lazy as fuck without an ounce of ambition in his bones.

Interesting, R352. What would you want his ambition to be?

R353, ANYTHING

Does he at least eat a mean bonbon?

R351’s Mom sounds like a cool old broad. Artistic and strategic women rule.

Reading books is artistic? My mom did that (while also smoking) and she was anything but artistic

R352 that's one the reasons I'm not with anyone and haven't been for years, though I'm not sure whether I'm inherently lazy, or more just emotionally paralysed by crippling perfectionism and social anxiety and low esteem that makes me averse to try achieving much. It's probably the latter. All the same, I don't feel like inflicting those traits on the life of a significant other, it wouldn't be fair to drag anyone down.

By buying a charming 1914 Craftsman. It’s hot and cold and the walls crack.

Never learned how to save or budget. This should be a required class in high school.

R360: It’s insane they don’t (or didn’t - I’ve no idea what they teach in schools now) teach us about savings and compound interest.

Making commercials imploring Apple TV+ to call me.

Going to university too young. At 19/20 years old, I was an emotional hormonal med-addled wreck and a husk of a person, not far enough removed from a hyperstructured and hypercompetitive academic life nor my dysfunctional family & community.

Am in my early 30s now, and I know I would have got so much more out of higher education and maybe even really enjoyed it with the calmer, more mature mindset and perspective I have now. Even if I’d have waited 5 years longer before I attended university, it would have been an improvement.

I also wouldn’t have picked such a general and academic major subject if I’d have waited, and would have interned and networked more. It would probably mean that I could take skills-based better paid jobs now, rather than minimum-wage content-monkey bullshit like all the other liberal arts BAs.

what skills based jobs do you think you can handle? you're still young. you can still go back to school. good luck R363