Ever had one those moments in life when you know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, you are making a very, very bad decision, with a great chance for instant regret and a miserable, probably long lasting, outcome and notheless followed that path?

Yeah, that one. Care to share with us?

I’ll start. I dated a person, after we had already dated for a very short time, during which I was cheated on and eventually was left for a fourth person.

Yeah, not my brightest moment. And yes, I was cheated on again and again was left for another person.

  • @[email protected]
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    362 years ago

    I was hiking and drinking with my friends. It was a hot day and I was drunk and dehydrated and we decided to climb down this large cliff that had waves at the bottom. If we fell it would have been death 100%. I remember holding onto this little plant thinking haha if this comes out I’m dead.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 years ago

        Do you want to be the reason the person went to grab a plant that looked well established just to find out some guy JUST stuck it in the ground?

    • Helix 🧬
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      162 years ago

      Kudos to that strong little plant! Let’s hope it lived a long, happy life.

  • @[email protected]
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    142 years ago

    Moved to socal during COVID thinking, “no one would move during a pandemic, so property values will be great”… cries in current property values

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      I moved out of socal back to Seattle at the very start of covid. I do not envy you for dealing with those crazy folks in OC. The biggest example of selfish insane people even in a hugely left-leaning area. Huntington Beach is just a mini-florida.

  • La Paloma Oma
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    312 years ago

    On the sixth level of a scaffold next to a staircase in the shell state, which was still completely open (from above I could look down to the floor a few stories below and possibly also fall), I was supposed to glue polyurethane strips and a sealing sheet to the roof slab. However, the scaffolding had already been partially dismantled, which meant I was hanging on the scaffolding with one arm and bridged the distance of over a meter with my body and outstretched arm to do my work. No safety, I could have become goo very quickly… stupid sense of duty and disregard for all the rules. I knew full well I shouldn’t be doing this right now, but let myself get pressured. But in the end it was a valuable lesson in self-esteem and fuck your boss’s deadlines.

    • Thurstylark
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      2 years ago

      Had a similar moment, but refused to work on the basis of safety, and don’t regret it one bit. Installing speakers on poles for a rooftop bar 20 stories up, and we needed 6-foot ladders to reach the mount. Boss said do the thing, I said you can fuck all the way off until I’m in a harness. Boss didn’t want to wait for the harness that was already on its way, and did it himself.

      He knew he’d be turbofucked if it took longer than his boss thought it would take because he didn’t think to bring a harness in the first place, and even more turbofucked if it came to light that he requested we work without it, so he just did it himself to save his own ass. It doesn’t matter if he survived, he was a stupid idiot for stepping one rung up on that ladder without a harness.

      For reference, this is the same dude who said that driving 17 hours in a van to a job site was just the same as sitting on the couch at home, so we should feel lucky that we’re getting paid for it. He was not a smart man.

      • qyronOP
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        62 years ago

        That is borderline suicidal.

        Just for my personal clarification: what does “turbofucked” implies? Because it sounds scary.

  • @[email protected]
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    1032 years ago

    That time I came inside her while drunk. 19 years later, I don’t regret the daughter I have, but the child support payments haven’t exactly been easy…

    • defunct_punk
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      162 years ago

      Remember fellas, just because she can’t consent when she’s drunk sure as fuck doesn’t mean you can’t, too

      • Blake [he/him]
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        432 years ago

        I’ve read this comment five times and I still don’t understand what you were trying to say.

        • defunct_punk
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          102 years ago

          I’m saying that being drunk isn’t considered a valid excuse for men like it is for women. If the original commenter was a woman who said she regretted having unprotected sex while she was drunk, white knights would be lining up to tell her she was a victim of rape. Very rarely are people sympathetic to men who make poor sexual decisions while drunk

          • Blake [he/him]
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            122 years ago

            A “valid excuse” for what? You might have a good point in this comment, but it’s very clear that you’re not making it in good faith.

            Rape is one of the least successfully prosecuted crimes. Maybe internet commenters would say that, but that’s meaningless - meanwhile, rapists get away with it 98% of the time, but yeah, clearly we’re being too tough on men. 🙄

          • @[email protected]
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            222 years ago

            top 4 made up scenarios you’ll never catch me spending my saturday writing an essay about online

  • @[email protected]
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    532 years ago

    I raised my right hand and swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

    That wasn’t my best decision ever, and I kinda knew it while I was doing it.

    • @[email protected]
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      202 years ago

      I did it twice. I knew for certain the second time around, yet I still did it . Didn’t get me a third time, though. No regrets now, a long time later, but those extra years were hard.

      • @[email protected]
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        132 years ago

        That’s actually the beginning of the Armed Services oath you take when you join the military here.

        But yes, kids do still say the Pledge of Allegiance in schools. That’s hand on the heart, not raised right hand though. And it also sucks.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          Ah got ya. I think soldiers have to do something similar here in the UK. But we don’t do it in schools. That’s kind of weird if I’m honest.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            Oh, no dude, it’s not kind of weird…

            It’s fucking creepy and bizarre culty shit. And that’s coming from someone who grew up doing it.

  • @[email protected]
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    342 years ago

    I’ve never made a mistake in the last ten years, and this is the biggest mistake because I’ve learned nothing from life.

  • @[email protected]
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    432 years ago

    I once hiked Longs Peak in Colorado. It’s an intense hike and has had a lot of people die on it over the years (quick search comes up with ~70 people). It took me and my friends about 12 hours to get up and back down.

    Anyway, I was younger and dumber and wore my normal street shoes, which happened to have almost no grip left on them. I vividly remember a portion of the hike near the end where you came up to a ledge (overlooking vast nothingness), you turned to your left and climbed up a 45 degree rock slope. If I had lost my grip on that ledge, I would’ve tumbled down and out into space. I had lost my grip with my shoes multiple times that day before that last section.

    I obviously didn’t slip or otherwise die that day, but I think about it pretty often. In a multiverse scenario, I figure quite a few of my parallel selves were lost that day haha

    • @[email protected]
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      62 years ago

      Hey! Bad decision buddy!! I also climbed longs peak in sneakers years ago. Seemed like a good idea until we got to the scree section near the top. I remember a lot of slipping on the way back down, too. I think I also killed a lot of multiverse mes that day.

      At least the views were worth it. One of the prettiest hikes I’ve ever done.

  • @[email protected]
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    362 years ago

    In 2014 I realized I was wasting my life working as a software engineer at T-Mobile HQ. Their company was terrible when it came to basic hygiene. People snotting into the sinks, the bathroom always a huge toxic mess, people always sick, and getting other people sick. I shared a cubicle with some random person. I’d always just take my laptop to one of the small meeting rooms that was used for 1-on-1 meetings. I was clearly on a project that no one could give a fuck about. I spent that time on #[email protected] and started working with the engine.

    One random Tuesday, I was in the small meeting room and there was a row of 3 or 4 of them. I was on the far corner and two people in the one next to mine were talking loudly. About me, I heard my name pop up a few times and it turned out to be my boss having a 1:1 with her boss about my lack of performance. They were preparing to fire me. It was the evening so I ducked out the rest of the day and prepared to get fired. For some reason, I decided I wanted to leave on my terms and I’d quit. I was a contractor so it wasn’t like I was going to get a severance. I quit with no prospects, I did have a few interviews for Unreal Engine jobs a week ago and a few months ago but hadn’t heard back so I assumed they moved on. So I quit to become a game developer on that Wednesday but those 2 interviews both got back to me that Thursday. By Friday I was trying to figure out between two studios to join. I went with the Canadian one and realized I had to start a business to support the relationship.

    So I went from a cushy software engineer job where I didn’t have to do anything to start up an international business contractor working in one of the most volatile industries. Back at T-Mobile as I stepped into the elevator they said “We want people who want to work here.” and it hit me. I just gave up one of the best-paying jobs I’d have in order to do something I actually want to do.

    Overall I had a lot of “I really should not be doing this” moments in that whole process but usually followed by “But if I fucking pull this off I’ll be amazing.” I’ve been in the games industry for 10 years now. My business is now quietly still standing as I moved to an employee job recently on a project I am really passionate about.

  • @[email protected]
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    392 years ago

    I wanted to buy a sailboat in Arizona, but it was too heavy for my existing vehicle. Boat transport services are really expensive, so I bought a rusty, 16-year-old van. Literally the third time I drove it (1. Get it home, 2. Register it), I hit the road across the continent.

    Now, this would be a really good story if that decision had gone horribly wrong, but I’m on that boat in Wisconsin right now. The van made it. I did discover that it had no spare tire when the exhaust pipe broke on the Kansas Turnpike, and I looked underneath for the first time. It was a loud journey through Iowa that day, but I had earplugs.

  • @[email protected]
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    32 years ago

    I did the same. My story had a really dark twist though…. Luckily things are somewhat better these days, but it’ll be one of those things that I’ll remember in my deathbed…

  • @[email protected]
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    62 years ago

    I was in college and needed to attend an important virtual meeting about choosing my major. They provided a Zoom link, but when I clicked it, it didn’t put me in a meeting, it said this is unavailable with your free tier. So, knowing this is a stupid idea, I begrudgingly paid this evil company $17 for a month of pro.

    And guess what? It still didn’t work. Apparently I needed to sign in with only my school account for it to work. Never utilized the month of pro either. But at the moment, it felt like a gun was being held to my head to pay Zoom $17.

    I hate tech sometimes, and despite being a young person I prefer things in person rather than always online at the mercy of these companies.

  • Blake [he/him]
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    2 years ago

    Once, I was pouring a can of petrol (gas, if you’re American) onto a fire, which spread up the stream of petrol into the petrol tank. I panicked, and my genius solution of how to extinguish it was to shake it around, kinda like how you might do to put out a match.

    I poured burning petrol all over the ground and on my clothes, there was fire everywhere all around me. Luckily I was right next to the hosepipe, which I quickly turned on and doused everything in water before it got too out of hand.

    Everything was fine, but it could have been a lot worse.

    Edit: Don’t play with petrol/gasoline. Fire spreads through it way faster than you could ever imagine, it’s not like in the movies where it moves slow enough that you can stop it, it’s pretty much instant!

    • @[email protected]
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      62 years ago

      My brother did that with ethanol in a small fire. That thing exploded and we nearly had a wildfire.

      Its the same as pissing on electric wires, DONT

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      I hope it’s obvious from your story, but just in case. Everyone, please don’t ever pour gasoline on a fire. It isn’t worth it.

    • @[email protected]
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      122 years ago

      Ooooh.

      I was working on a weedeater (strimmer, if you’re a redcoat) when a very sadistic friend of mine noticed a puddle of gasoline on the ground and threw a lit match at the puddle.

      The fire immediately raced over to me and into the fuel tank.

      My instinct was to blow the fire out. That’s right, a fire, fueled by gasoline, in a plastic tank. I burned my entire face.

      That erased the birthday candle instinct from my mind and I have been more careful since then when confronted with fire.

      • Blake [he/him]
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        32 years ago

        Damn! Hope that friend is now an ex-friend, what a crazy dangerous thing to do! Hope you recovered okay from the burns <3

        • @[email protected]
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          62 years ago

          No, thank goodness. I had a big nasty blister on my chin, a few on my cheeks, no eyelashes or brows, and I had to get a haircut.

          My neighbor had some burn cream that she rushed over and put on me. She said it would have been way worse without it. I’ve always just taken her work for it and been thankful.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      God damn. You dodged a bullet. I had a somewhat distant uncle die recently after a gas tank exploded while pouring it onto a fire. Burns over his entire body and he was too old to really regenerate. Died in the hospital after 50+ days of agony.

      • Blake [he/him]
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        42 years ago

        Yeah, I know how lucky I am, for sure. That’s horrible what happened to your uncle, what an awful way to go :(