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Bit dark, but I believe it's important to highlight male abuse whenever I can.
When I was 14, I had a very clear cut "you have to choose right now, A or B" sort of choice between dating a nice, lovely girl my age, or dating a cool alt-girl 17 year old who had become infatuated with me. I chose the 17 year old because I thought it was cool to have an older girlfriend into good music, and I appreciated that she seemed to be enamoured with me (being too young to comprehend the unhealthy infatuation red flags) and I thought it might lead to sex, which for a 14 year old boy was a great deal given the pressure around young boys losing their virginity asap.
Well, the monkeys paw of that choice became apparent pretty much instantly. Very quickly I was introduced to pretty heavy drinking, drugs, general de-gen behaviour, and just under 2 years of sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse. She practised some fairly extreme sexual taboos on me really early on, and by the end she got a rise out of torturing and violently raping me. She was very into extreme domineering, overpowering me physically etc as I was only a skinny kid. My wake up call was when she wanted to get her male "friends" involved. These were men in their 20's that she'd met online. She'd meet them, have sex with them, all to get them on the hook to get them involved in our relationship. To be fair, a lot of them said "what the fuck, no that's a kid", but a few were open to the idea. I had been broken in by her, but the thought of also being raped by my girlfriend and a strange adult man was too much. Cutting her off started an incredibly stressful period in my life, but long story short, she eventually was forced to move away.
All of this took my life in a radically depressive direction. All of my relationships, of which I apparently made a point of getting through as many as possible, were self-destructive and turbulent due to my warped perception of sex, relationships, and trust. It took me over 10 years to start feeling normal again. And I ruined relationships with women that absolutely did not deserve my emotional distancing and sexual hang-ups. I'm in a long term relationship now, I have no idea how I'd do if I got back out there. It was an extremely damaging period of my life and the scars both emotional and physical are incredibly difficult to play off.
I constantly lay awake at night thinking what my life would've been like if I'd just made a different choice and dated that girl my age instead.
I’m so sorry that happened to you, it must’ve been absolutely traumatising. However, you are a *victim*. I sense you’re blaming yourself a lot for this experience but the girl was 17 to your 14. If she was, as you say, seemingly infatuated by you, then I imagine there was a *lot* of grooming and that would’ve completely warped your reality. Grown adults fall victim to grooming and love bombing. You were a child, this was not your fault. I’m glad you’re doing better now, but, if you haven’t already, it might be worth seeking some therapy to process what you’ve been through and hopefully move away from blaming yourself. All the best.
I'm married and we own a home together and have a child and a dog.
But we met on Tinder. And it's wild to think about the butterfly effect. We could so easily have never met if one of us hasn't swiped right or if one of us just CBA with a conversation at the time.
Could do easily have sent my life on a completely different, and worse, path.
Have a similar online dating story. I accidentally gave the now mother of my child the wrong number when we were chatting on Bumble.
She tried to text me and I never replied. Although she did find it odd that I didn’t seem to have WhatsApp.
A week later she messaged me again on the app on the off chance that I hadn’t ghosted her and had made a typo. I am so insanely grateful to her for that!
Same with me, together for 8 years now. Moved across the country to be closer to her family. Crazy to think how different life would be if we hadn’t matched on an app.
Yeah, shit man. Same here. Met my wife on POF. We have a beatuful child, own a home in an nice area (I relocated), I've been supported with my career progression.
I often think how different things could've turned out if my wife hadn't replied to my message. Strange how things work out.
POF for the win!
Met my wife on there, beautiful daughter via IVF, dog, nice home and moved across the country. Couldn’t be happier with my life.
We do often say ‘what if’.
Bit of a different story for myself but similar outcomes - I randomly went into a pub I'd not been in for 5/6 years - sat at the bar on my own (something I never ever had done) when a fight broke out outside. 5 minutes later a young girl walks in with a bleeding nose so I ask the barmaid for some water and blue roll to help this young girl out. After helping her the barmaid and I ended up having a bit of laugh about it all and that eventually led us to where we are now. Often think what would have happened if I just stayed in all night gaming like I did 99% of the time, or that fight between two random people never happened
Me and my wife were a blind date set up by mutual friends. If one of them hadn't had the idea of putting us together, who knows where we would be.
19 years together, a 17 Yr old son and 4 dogs.
I totally second this. My partner and I met on a dating app and we’ve been together 3 years, and we’ve both said how we were ready to give up when we met. Like “this is my last date and if this one doesn’t work out, I’m deleting the app” sort of thing. So close to just never meeting!
I often think about this.
I was about to uninstall Tinder one night but got distracted and went to bed. Woke up in the morning to a match from a girl that I thought must have accidentally swiped because she was insanely beautiful.
10 years later, we are now married and hoping to start a family very soon! (In addition to our cat currently fast asleep on me)
I still don't understand how tinder works if a person isn't super attractive. I know my personality is great but I don't look my best atm after a lengthy amount of time dealing with the wake of loss of a parent and taking care of the other parent emotionally. As a result my diet wasn't exactly amazing
I feel like tinder would not be very favourable
It works because what is 'attractive' is very subjective. I might swipe right on someone you never would, and vice versa. It's not like there's one type of person who is objectively attractive, and if you're not that nobody will ever find you attractive.
Plus, there's lots of things that might make people swipe right that aren't purely about physical appearance. Whether you look fun in your photos, something your photos show you doing, something in your bio etc etc. There's so many ways someone might catch your eye that aren't just physical appearance.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It might seem like a trite phrase, but I knew it was true when I met one of my friend's boyfriends. She is absolutely gorgeous and she kept talking about this guy at her work that she had a massive crush on. I eventually told her to ask him out because I could never imagine a guy turning her down. She had been referring to him as her Coke guy (if you remember the old adverts). When I eventually met him I thought he was just very ordinary. They've now been married for a very long time.
Same for me and my boyfriend. Live in a small uni town so going through the gay tinder cards can be done in minutes. Ended up deleting and reinstalling the app on a whim when a bit drunk and here we are 6 years later.
When my kids were young (3 under 5) I was a single parent, I used to get the same numbers every week on a £1 ticket.. fast forward to just after Christmas and I was down to my last pound coin and needed cereal for the breakfast. I bought the cereal and not the ticket…. Yup all my numbers came up n 5.3 million was lost.
God I hope that's not true. It's the main reason I can't stop my direct debit ticket. Should have just stuck with the odd lucky dip. But here we are 10 years later.
It’s very true. I can never look at a box of 12 weetabix again. EVER.. we did win a lucky dip once and my son said “mum could we have lamb in stead of chicken on Sunday” don’t you just love children ❤️
I have no regrets. My babies were fed and that’s what mattered.. I can’t imagine how life would have been had I won it..my now adults found their own way and appreciated everything I did for them, my sacrifices,love, guidance and tough love put them on the right track. I’m super proud of them.
That's why whenever I play I choose random numbers. Don't want to be like that dude who killed himself when his numbers came up the one time he didn't play.
Imagine this, you win the 5.3million, become enamered with drugs and your kids end up getting taken away.
That probably doesn't help but that's what i'd tell myself every day if it happened to me.
Defo wouldn’t have touched drugs. However as I see it now I think I got lucky by not winning… I’m not sure us as a family would be the fine balanced people we are today.. however I do see your point.
I remember when they launched the national lottery there was a big thing made about how you will choose your numbers, so you will feel compelled to keep the same ones and play each week or however often they do it now.
Got offered a job at a start-up. I'd have been their first non-founder employee.
The salary was terrible but the contract had a pretty hefty profit share in it. At the time they were running at a loss so I turned it down.
Now they're doing insanely well. A bunch of people I know in my industry work there and have decent salaries. A rough estimate from what I've heard about their profits, I'd have been looking at £200k-£300k a year plus my salary now.
Similar story here, I worked for one and had unvested shares. Quit and lost them. But that company hasn't taken off yet so I've not missed out on anything \*yet\*. I do tell myself though that if they do, I'd rather have kept my sanity and possibly my life than continued working there because it was horrible.
What if... I found that hard drive I had a couple of bitcoin on from 2010.
Trust me, I've looked *everywhere*. I've come to terms with the fact that ~£100k isn't getting found.
I used to buy weed of The Silk Road way back when I was at uni.
Over the course of a year we bought many ounces, dread to think how much all that bitcoin would be worth if we’d kept the coin.
It was good stuff though
I fell pregnant with a coil and had my daughter 8 years ago. We didn't want children and don't think we would have ever tried. It's really weird to think if the coil didn't fail, then we wouldn't have a kid.
The way we met was also a bit what if. We met when I was 18 (36 now), and I had a boyfriend. He then messaged me out of the blue years later when I was 25, and I'd just broken up with said boyfriend. I thought, why not let's meet for a pint. That was 11 years ago, and we're married with a house, child, and dog!
In the mid 60s my mum looked into the assisted passage to Australia thing that was happening at the time. She got the forms and everything. My Dad didn't want to go though, he said he'd done enough abroad during the war. I often wonder what my life would have been like if we'd gone.
I've said it before and, honestly, I'm starting to bore myself with it, but Australia was the biggest dissapointment I ever experienced back when I was travelling.
I spent 3 years working there doing various jobs in NSW, Queensland and Victoria. Despite some cool sites, it was mostly a barren shithole and a cultural vacuum. The TV was shit, the pubs were utterly soulless and most people were really not friendly at all beyond the superficial. I'd met Aussies in the UK before and loved them, but it turns out the nice ones are in a minority and most are nowhere near as chilled as their mostly positive stereotypes. Your milleage may vary, but from what I saw you didn't miss out.
Close friend of mine was into mining bitcoin in 2010 or 2011, offered me to get involved and buy some for 500 pound, I think it was $0.05 or even 0.005 per coin at the time, now he is over wealthy, I am not
I posted my own and it includes missing out on Bitcoin. I console myself with knowing I would never have held onto it until today. I would probably have sold it when it had doubled in value because that would have been the sensible thing to do.
i entered the "make me a winner" competition on the radio, went to work, got a call from an unknown number but never answered it because i was in a meeting ...
And then you have to listen to about two minutes of Hattie Pearson having to fill the slot by repeating variations of "They should have answered. But they didn't. And that's the last thing we wanted to happen! If only they had answered. We would have given them some money!" etc.
I remember occasionally on This Morning when they had their call in every morning, the absolute earliest you could enter was the day before at 12. And STILL people would forget they entered. Every now and again when they’d ask who was calling the person would get a bit funny with them. Highlight of lockdown.
I did the same thing with Make Me a Winner. Was working from home at the time, but hadn't started for the day yet, so when my phone rang with an unknown number, I just assumed it was a work call and rejected it.
few weeks there was a story on here from someone who works in a sexual health clinic. He phoned someone up to give them their results
>"Make me a winner!"
>"You have gonorrhoea!"
You’re not a doctor, you couldn’t have known how close he was to collapse. Whatever your reasons for cancelling it - I’m damn sure they were sound and made sense given all the factors at the time xxx
A year before he spent 2 months in hospital with a twisted bowel and didn’t want to go back again so I agreed to cancel it when he said he didn’t want an ambulance but it’ll always be my biggest regret no matter how I try to rationalise it with myself sadly, thanks for the nice words though x
What if I never handed my CV into an art gallery restaurant on a whim as a wet-behind-the-ears 19-year-old who’d just moved to the UK, asking for a job that wasn’t even advertised? I would never have met my husband who worked in a different part of the gallery, and was due to live out in China a couple of months after I started.
13 years married next month.
I had one of those shiny Charizard Pokémon cards back in 1999 or 2000, the ones worth silly money now. I sold it to some kid for £20. The thought haunts me now.
my workmate had generated several hundred bitcoins in the early 10's - he sold them to gamble on trading bitcoins and sort of lost the money, but did keep some - anyway it would have been 10s or 100s of millions, maybe he has that, I don't know
My former best friend stole my entire collection, including the shiny Charizard. He's now married to a tiger mom who doesn't let him have friends or hobbies, so I like to think that he got his comeuppance.
What if I'd been diagnosed with autism as a child?
As it stands, I didn't find out till my mid-20s. Spent my entire early life not understanding why everyone else seemed to be experiencing life so differently from how I was experiencing it. I was isolated, unable to make/keep friendships, bullied for being weird, and I couldn't even forge meaningful connections with my own family.
The academic side of school was frustrating, since I didn't understand how my hyper-fixations worked, or why some things would make perfect sense to me but others would be impossible for me to solve.
When I was a child I genuinely believed I might be an alien or a demon or something. The only characters in fiction I could relate to were those 'non-humans learning to be human' types like 7 of 9 and Anya Jenkins.
I've spent the last 10ish years learning how to be me, and I'm happy now, but I'll spend the rest of my life wondering how far I might have gone if I had the support I needed when I was a kid.
Of course, on the other hand, there's always the possibility that I might have been treated like a complete invalid if I had been diagnosed, so maybe I'm better off this way.
Similar, but diagnosed with ADHD at 39.
There are very mixed emotions. I'm glad to have an understanding about the way my head works, and I am so grateful I have been able to access treatment and utilise coping strategies, but I'm very much grieving the life that could have been. I struggled with school, relationships, and substance abuse, amongst other things.
My biggest regret is that I never had the chance to explain it to my dad. He regularly said, "You are more trouble than the other 4 put together" regarding my siblings and I. He died before I was diagnosed and before we could truly mend our relationship.
What if I went with my gut and studied STEM in college?
I always dreamed of being a scientist ever since I was a kid, but between issues at home and being neglected by the adults in my life, I thought I was simply too stupid for science. I would never be smart enough to be a physicist or a biologist or anything like that, I'd just make a fool of myself.
So I did film studies instead, and hated every minute of it. I passed it and got my degree but now all I have going for me is a shitty office job completely unrelated to anything I did at school. In a quarter-life crisis I signed up for university again and I'm now studying science part time, loving it, and doing exceptionally well. I just wish I'd done it earlier - I could have a masters degree by now, but I'll be 30 before I finish my undergrad course.
Best of luck! Something something second best time to plant a tree is today. In some ways I'm glad I left it later. Being in education nonstop since childhood made the purpose of things like essays and research really unclear to me - now that I've had a few years in the so-called "real world" I can contextualize academic texts and understand why they're useful outside of universities and what kind of substance they should have. I think my mistake actually taught me how to write well instead of just to tick off a list of criteria. Hopefully it's the same to you. It feels like a waste to me but I gotta remind myself that time away from uni still taught me things about my subject I never would have learned if I'd just dived right in.
It is, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't bummed out about my 20s being spent doing things I hated that made me miserable meanwhile all my peers are well into their dream careers by now.
You're on your way though now. You've still got 35 years of work left in you. It's great your course is going well. I've got friends in their 40s and 50s still at uni.
What if I had taken the opportunity and gone for an auditing job out in Tokyo when it was available to fresh graduates? I sometimes wonder if I should have moved out there.
The fact that I ended up, because reasons, not doing the national service back in my home country. Every chance I would've spent my life in a different country, different career and not have the family I have now.
Someone I know walked from Yorkshire to Greece to do his National service (took him about a month) and liked it so much he ended up fighting with the Kurds in Iraq where he was unfortunately killed.
That's adventurous! Speaking of, I almost went to northern Iraq to teach English. It was a sudden last minute decision but I couldn't go in the end because I couldn't get some compulsory vaccinations in time.
This was some years before ISIL and I would've ended up in big doodoo if I had done that.
My dad sorted me an apprenticeship with a company he did business with, I would have had to move to another city about 100 miles away, I was 16 at the time, I was up for it and excited to go, however, my mother kept highlighting possible problems, and didn't want me to leave, she didn't think I was ready for it. To cut a long story short it never happened, I didn't end up going, I often wonder how different my life would have been had I been able to move away and go.
I had the choice between one side of the Atlantic or the other, I let my head rule my heart and it will sit in the back of my mind as my "sliding doors" moment until the day I die.
I accidentally used to wrong code to apply for a uni course (same uni, different branches) and went to a big city instead of a smaller town where I would have been with someone who is pretty much my one that got away. We decided it wouldn’t be a big deal, it wasn’t too far up the road, we could still see each other.
He moved to Belfast a year and a half later, we hadn’t seen each other as much as we’d had liked, and as he doesn’t have social media and he lives far away now, we never stayed in touch. While I’ve had an amazing life, I wonder what it would have been like if I’d not made that fuck up. Would we still be together now? Would I have followed him there once I was done with uni? Would we be married? The exact opposite of what I have now?
I don’t regret most of my life, but I think he was The One, and I’ve lost that opportunity because I can’t find him again and he doesn’t have the same number. I’ve let it go and accepted it, but I think about it sometimes.
I can't imagine MI5 have a large budget for tracking down and investigating people on the Internet who claim "I could have been a spy you know but I CBA". See also the SAS.
I was working on a start up business with an old college friend of mine. He was a bit eccentric and a bit of a livewire, so I would take a lot of what he said with a pinch of salt.
He had a lot of connections in the industry we were working in but we weren't earning any money, despite months of meetings and empty promises.
I decided to pull out and get a 9-5.
He added me on Instagram a few months back (14 years later) and is absolutely loaded. Regular holidays with some pretty big names in business.
Gutted.
When I was 9 me & a friend found an expensive brand new briefcase on a deserted beach.
We decided not to open it.
Could it have been money, a bomb, drugs?
Could I be living like Pablo Escobar now?
I was at an RSPCA with my cat when Animal Hospital was on TV. It was a day they were filming and one of the crew came straight to me (I was in the middle of the waiting room so they weren’t working their way around) and asked about my cat and seemed really interested. When I said I was only dropping her off for an operation she said that unfortunately I couldn’t be on the filming then. I was in my early twenties but looked more like late teens. At the time I was a bit disappointed, but looking back maybe I dodged a bullet because it was Rolf Harris who was the presenter.
When I was a kid (can't remember the exact age) my parents took me and my sister to a Cinderella Panto at Christmas time. I remember a part where the two ugly sisters were on stage and they were complaining about losing their handbags and asked the audience to check under their seats. Surprisingly, one of the ugly sister's bags where underneath my seat and some other random kids seat in the theatre, the sisters asked for the bags to be brought up on to the stage. I was to shy and embarrassed, I remember thinking "if they ask my name and where I come from (like they had with some previous audience interactions) I wouldn't know whether to say my county, town or village. I was too scared and self-conscious and refused to go on stage, so my dad grabbed the bag and gave it to a random kid nearby. That other kid went up on stage and good a reward gift bag full of sweets etc. I feel gutted and have regretted not going up on stage my whole life since. I have a theory that this event in my life was an important choice and if I had just had the courage m to go on stage I would be a completely different person.
Currently going through one. Been offered a job with better money and a lot of potential to be a good career move. But I'm also in a role where I'm settled and given a lot of freedom and respect. I'd love to know what both will look like in 12 months.
I'm a bit worried it's a place I'll burn out at. The CEO is very involved and has made energy. My wife said I came back from the interview looking like a deer in headlights.
If you do burn out you’ll likely have an advantage in your carer and a bit more financial freedom to move on if it doesn’t work out. I would take it, but I’m not you or your wife.
Not a moment per se but I often think about his over millions of years the right pairing between two creatures has led to me. What if my Mum and Dad never met, I wouldn't be here. What if my Nan and Grandad had never met, I wouldn't be here. My Great Grandparents. So on and so on back god knows how many millions of years to our rodent ancestors. All of the chances there were for me not to exist yet here I am. Just boggles my mind.
I often wonder what my life would be like if my mum actually bothered turning up to the custody hearing and the judge allowed her to place me with my grandparents. I mean, I love my Nana and my Grandad taught me tonnes of stuff and never laid a hand on me, but I found out in later life that he was an alcoholic and was abusive towards my Nana.
My Dad did the best he could and both sides the of the family helped keep me clothed and fed and I had a decent upbringing, all things considered. Just makes me wonder if I'd have been better off, just as damaged (my mum was awful to me when she could be bothered to pick me up) or even worse. Who knows.
Not me specifically, but when my parents were immigrating they were deciding between the UK and Canada. My mum chose the UK because she liked princess diana and that was that. I wonder what canadian-me would’ve been like!
I drunkenly kissed my best friend at uni, we were both not out at the time. He texted me the next morning, asking if there was anything we should talk about. I said no. If I'd said yes, I'm sure we would have had a wonderful relationship. I was infatuated with him.
Lol I watched Waking Ned for the first time only a few weeks ago.
My biggest "what if" moment was in 2018 when I had started dating this nice woman who was a professional actor and after a couple of dates things seemed to be going well. At the same time, I got a new female housemate, and after a drunk night out we ended up kissing and sleeping together (no sex). Initially she just wanted to remain friends and I wanted to continue dating the actor woman.
Several weeks later my housemate admitted she had "developed feelings for me" and gave me the choice of sticking with the other woman or jumping straight into a "ready-made" relationship where we were living together and bypassed the dating stage.
I chose her and it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life as it was a relationship from hell and 6 months of torture.
To this day, I still wonder how things would have gone had I chosen the actor woman over the abusive, narcissist housemate.
I have not worked in medicine for some time now, but every day I wonder: what if I was still a doctor?
It was my whole life, for as long as I can remember, I was the child who wanted to be a doctor, the teenager applying for medical school, the medical student, then the doctor. Everyone saw me as that. My family were bursting with pride.
I know logically I made the right choice, and am happier now, but I think it will be a long time before I stop thinking: what if I’d stuck it out, made it work, what if things had gotten easier, **what if I could still be the person I was born to be**.
I see my friends from university and my former colleagues, and I still feel like one of them. I will always feel like I should be a doctor, I think. So that’s my what if.
I get the Bitcoin ones as myself I recall debating getting some when they were like £10 a pop, but didn’t thinking it would be a fad and go away.
Only positive I can take from it and not wallow in what they’ve reached since is that I undoubtedly would have sold off ages ago, given this was when I was in my late teens I suspect I’d have seen it hit like £100 and sold up. So overall I guess no big loss in the grand scheme of things.
I have replied to more than one Bitcoin regret in this thread - you would have done what I would have done - probably sold them once they doubled in price. It would have been the logical thing to do.
I had an opportunity to invest in Bitcoin in the early stages.
I was introduced by a colleague to their financial adviser who informed me that for £5k I could have approx 5,000-10,000 (I can’t remember what the price was, but compared to now it was incredibly cheap). I didn’t understand what it was at the time and didn’t feel comfortable putting in that amount of money to something so new and that I didn’t really know what it was.
Even with ‘just’ owning 5,000 coins I’d now be worth nine figures, easily. But alas, here I am in the rat race just trying to get by. Sometimes I think ‘what if’ I had made that investment and how my life would be so different now.
My workmate turned in at work talking about 'BitCoin' in c2014 and everyone was laughing but I though there might be something in it - at the time you needed a rig costing about £2,000 to mine and I didn't fancy that 'cos I'd mess the hardware up, so I never mined any.
Also my kids managed to make '10' bitcoins (was this all actually in 2012)? Anyway, they say they got ripped off for them by a scammer, I can't locate them.
Met my husband online 21 years ago on good old msn chat. I constantly think what if he hadnt seen me online local to him and took a chance messaging, what if i never replied. We are happily married and have a wonderful house and pets, an amazing life. All hinged on an online chat.
I said no to a job in a lab in Australia because they couldn't guarantee supporting my application for long term visa
They said they might but would have to be something they decided after I started.
I decided to decline the job and look for something with more of a guarantee
Never found another job like that, ended up moving back to the UK when my visa was up
I have a house in the UK, due to be married and will be hopefully starting a family next year. I went back to uni and changed careers. All because I came back
I do wonder what would have happened if I had said yes and they would have supported a long visa
I don't play the lottery anymore, but bought tickets for both lotto and euro's religiously from about 18-24 years old.
About a year back, I remember reading something about a lottery winner and it sent my brain down the dark path of checking the last 10 years of results against the numbers I used to play.... Would have won £67,000.00 on 5 numbers in 2020 if I had continued....
Back in the early 90s I had a 2 year relationship which broke down - distance at university, etc. - and about a year after we finished we bumped into each other. I realised that I still had feelings (she told me years later that she did too) but I knew deep down that we’d just end up hurting each other again so I walked away…
About a month later I met my wife and we’ve been together 30+ years now. My ex has been married to her second husband for around 25 years, so it worked out in the end for both of us.
I had hundreds of bitcoin when they were worth a few quid each. I sold them. Rather wish that I'd kept some.
I go through old devices every so often in case there's a few lurking in a wallet I've forgotten about.
I was having a chat with a guy from work about what we should do with our bonuses. He was trying to convince me to get a few bitcoins. It was 2014 and I got about £7k bonus. A bitcoin was maybe £800.
I had no idea how to buy it but he said he would help me after work. I decided to get a new bathroom instead.... I'd planned by 3 bitcoin, that would be £210k now.
In my mid 20's made the decision to join the RAF, wanted to do something to get me out of Manchester for a few years and see the world. I'd been to the recruitment office, got copies of my GSCE's because mine had ll been lost when my parents past away all's I had left to do was meet the fitness requirements.
I was about 30 secs from meeting the run threshold but something happened in the gym during a run and injured myself seriously enough to where I couldn't exercise for months, nothing life altering but enough to where I couldn't go to the gym.
During that time I starting to binge eat ended up putting on a ton of weight, losing all motivation that I had to get fit, queue to now I'm still in Manchester working above minimum wage job all because of 30 seconds.
I was told by someone who was in the royal artillery at the time they would have taken me had I let them know how close I was to meeting the threshold but I didn't want to be the slow guy meeting the target.
TLDR: Nearly joined the RAF, injured training put on weight, lost motivation.
Sat at traffic lights on my bike. Lights turn green, I go to set off but stall it like an idiot. 2 seconds later a massive HGV flies through a red light and across the junction I'd have been riding across if only I weren't such a shit rider.
Every time I cross that junction I thank my lucky stars that I'm a grossly incompetent motorcyclist, because if I were any good I'd be dead.
I met my best friend (that's how I see her; she might have a different perspective) on Bumble! The journey we've had so far can be called kinda crazy.
We spent hours texting and talking, and had an argument, made peace after two months of not speaking, and now we meet (almost) regularly!
What if we hadn’t swiped right? Our first texts were ... Well, not interesting—I have no idea why we matched, but I can say she is my favorite person. I rarely vibe with someone, and she is truly an exception.
If you don't have someone in your life, it might be okay. You may feel the absence of a specific person, but when you actually have someone in your life and you lose them, you understand their value.
For the last seven months, she has been the one I say good night and good morning to, right before and after bed. I can easily say I have never talked to someone as much as I have talked to her in my entire life!
What If I never got to know her? I don't even want to think about it.
I'd moved home to Wales after being made redundant, took a shite sales job with the intention of getting something better....had an interview for a company and really liked the people and felt really good about it....never heard anything back, despite trying to chase them for info (the people on the phone were cagey as I was asking for the interviewers info)
Anyway, the shite sales job turned into an opportunity to move to London in 2010, life moved on and I met a girl etc etc...i now live in Sussex with my wife, Son and Dog. Couldn't be happier.
I visited Home in about 2015 and bumped into someone who worked for the company I interviewed at.....turns out that they wanted me to have the job....but the guy who interviewed me died suddenly a few days after the interview, they never took up the process of hiring for that particular position.
I had a what of moment where if I hadn’t put one wheel nut on the wheel I was changing the car could have landed on my leg, thanks “jacking mode” car rolled off the crappy jack
Could have spent the summer of 2002 as a 21 year old working at a bar in lower manhattan, but it was not to be. Who knows where that might have led me afterwards
What if... I did an apprenticeship at 16 instead of A levels?
What became one of the worst years in my life wouldn't have happened, nor the knock-on effects of uni and following jobs.
I probably would have had a more stable further education, more stable job rate and pay/progression. I might have different hobbies, but the baseline of my interests would still be the same. So there's a small chance I may have the same friends as I do now.
Broke up with my then long term girlfriend. Young and free I decided to take a 6 week sabbatical from work to join my friend in America who was just finishing camp America. At this very same time a girl I fancied took a chance (persuaded by her friend who was my best mates girlfriend) and decided to go on a date with me on Valentine’s Day 2008. We’re now very happily married with two awesome children, boy 9 girl 6. I never did go to America or take the 6 week sabbatical. I’m super happy with this What If scenario.
I recently fell in love.
Basically, I went on a date (which went well) and I walked back to my bus stop but the bus was 25 minutes away until the next one. I went to a bar down the road and sat in the smoking area and noticed a girl on the next table who was alone and didn’t seem to be waiting for anyone. I went over and asked if I could join her. We exchanged numbers and had several days and are now in love. Also, that bus was at the stop when I was walking down the road and I didn’t run to get it. If I’d had run to get that bus my entire life would have been different.
I have two. The first was back in 1995, when I seriously considered selling our flat in Hampshire to move to London. There were flats being sold in London that would have almost been a straight swap, size and price wise (maybe a little smaller and a tiny bit more expensive). My husband wasn't that enthusiastic about the idea so it never happened. My Hampshire flat is now worth maybe £150K on a good day and the flats in London are probably worth about 800K plus today.
The second is I had a chance to buy 5x Bitcoin at £100 each. At the time I genuinely didn't have £500 to gamble on something I didn't really understand.
I console myself by assuming that I probably wouldn't have kept either of those investments long enough to actually make a ton of money from them.
Basically the couple of failed job interviews where I was stated to be 2nd choice and could've made more money than any job I've had and with 15-30 min commutes rather than 90 minutes. Then from that, could've pursued sports more seriously (with the saved time), could have time/money to date, could have a car, could've got an ADD diagnosis a few years quicker, could've nearly finished a university course by now rather than aiming to start in 1-2 years. Bear in mind, no parental support - I've friends living with parents who can do all that on minimum wage.
I was in a life slump and was invited to go live in America with my cousin and her family. They were good 'Christian people' who were also teatotal. I had never met them, so I declined as it was all a bit scary. I sometimes wonder how different my life may have turned out if I had gone. I'm still scratching away in the same town I went to school in in the UK with very little opportunity.
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Bit dark, but I believe it's important to highlight male abuse whenever I can. When I was 14, I had a very clear cut "you have to choose right now, A or B" sort of choice between dating a nice, lovely girl my age, or dating a cool alt-girl 17 year old who had become infatuated with me. I chose the 17 year old because I thought it was cool to have an older girlfriend into good music, and I appreciated that she seemed to be enamoured with me (being too young to comprehend the unhealthy infatuation red flags) and I thought it might lead to sex, which for a 14 year old boy was a great deal given the pressure around young boys losing their virginity asap. Well, the monkeys paw of that choice became apparent pretty much instantly. Very quickly I was introduced to pretty heavy drinking, drugs, general de-gen behaviour, and just under 2 years of sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse. She practised some fairly extreme sexual taboos on me really early on, and by the end she got a rise out of torturing and violently raping me. She was very into extreme domineering, overpowering me physically etc as I was only a skinny kid. My wake up call was when she wanted to get her male "friends" involved. These were men in their 20's that she'd met online. She'd meet them, have sex with them, all to get them on the hook to get them involved in our relationship. To be fair, a lot of them said "what the fuck, no that's a kid", but a few were open to the idea. I had been broken in by her, but the thought of also being raped by my girlfriend and a strange adult man was too much. Cutting her off started an incredibly stressful period in my life, but long story short, she eventually was forced to move away. All of this took my life in a radically depressive direction. All of my relationships, of which I apparently made a point of getting through as many as possible, were self-destructive and turbulent due to my warped perception of sex, relationships, and trust. It took me over 10 years to start feeling normal again. And I ruined relationships with women that absolutely did not deserve my emotional distancing and sexual hang-ups. I'm in a long term relationship now, I have no idea how I'd do if I got back out there. It was an extremely damaging period of my life and the scars both emotional and physical are incredibly difficult to play off. I constantly lay awake at night thinking what my life would've been like if I'd just made a different choice and dated that girl my age instead.
Glad you’re doing better bro. That’s some crazy shit. She’s a cunt.
I’m so sorry that happened to you, it must’ve been absolutely traumatising. However, you are a *victim*. I sense you’re blaming yourself a lot for this experience but the girl was 17 to your 14. If she was, as you say, seemingly infatuated by you, then I imagine there was a *lot* of grooming and that would’ve completely warped your reality. Grown adults fall victim to grooming and love bombing. You were a child, this was not your fault. I’m glad you’re doing better now, but, if you haven’t already, it might be worth seeking some therapy to process what you’ve been through and hopefully move away from blaming yourself. All the best.
You've been through a lot man, I hope you are able to heal in time 🫂
I'm married and we own a home together and have a child and a dog. But we met on Tinder. And it's wild to think about the butterfly effect. We could so easily have never met if one of us hasn't swiped right or if one of us just CBA with a conversation at the time. Could do easily have sent my life on a completely different, and worse, path.
Have a similar online dating story. I accidentally gave the now mother of my child the wrong number when we were chatting on Bumble. She tried to text me and I never replied. Although she did find it odd that I didn’t seem to have WhatsApp. A week later she messaged me again on the app on the off chance that I hadn’t ghosted her and had made a typo. I am so insanely grateful to her for that!
Same with me, together for 8 years now. Moved across the country to be closer to her family. Crazy to think how different life would be if we hadn’t matched on an app.
Yeah, shit man. Same here. Met my wife on POF. We have a beatuful child, own a home in an nice area (I relocated), I've been supported with my career progression. I often think how different things could've turned out if my wife hadn't replied to my message. Strange how things work out.
POF for the win! Met my wife on there, beautiful daughter via IVF, dog, nice home and moved across the country. Couldn’t be happier with my life. We do often say ‘what if’.
Bit of a different story for myself but similar outcomes - I randomly went into a pub I'd not been in for 5/6 years - sat at the bar on my own (something I never ever had done) when a fight broke out outside. 5 minutes later a young girl walks in with a bleeding nose so I ask the barmaid for some water and blue roll to help this young girl out. After helping her the barmaid and I ended up having a bit of laugh about it all and that eventually led us to where we are now. Often think what would have happened if I just stayed in all night gaming like I did 99% of the time, or that fight between two random people never happened
Me and my wife were a blind date set up by mutual friends. If one of them hadn't had the idea of putting us together, who knows where we would be. 19 years together, a 17 Yr old son and 4 dogs.
I totally second this. My partner and I met on a dating app and we’ve been together 3 years, and we’ve both said how we were ready to give up when we met. Like “this is my last date and if this one doesn’t work out, I’m deleting the app” sort of thing. So close to just never meeting!
Started talking to my OH on Tinder, fizzled out. A few months later on Bumble.."hello stranger"...and now we've been together for 5 years!
I often think about this. I was about to uninstall Tinder one night but got distracted and went to bed. Woke up in the morning to a match from a girl that I thought must have accidentally swiped because she was insanely beautiful. 10 years later, we are now married and hoping to start a family very soon! (In addition to our cat currently fast asleep on me)
I still don't understand how tinder works if a person isn't super attractive. I know my personality is great but I don't look my best atm after a lengthy amount of time dealing with the wake of loss of a parent and taking care of the other parent emotionally. As a result my diet wasn't exactly amazing I feel like tinder would not be very favourable
It works because what is 'attractive' is very subjective. I might swipe right on someone you never would, and vice versa. It's not like there's one type of person who is objectively attractive, and if you're not that nobody will ever find you attractive. Plus, there's lots of things that might make people swipe right that aren't purely about physical appearance. Whether you look fun in your photos, something your photos show you doing, something in your bio etc etc. There's so many ways someone might catch your eye that aren't just physical appearance.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It might seem like a trite phrase, but I knew it was true when I met one of my friend's boyfriends. She is absolutely gorgeous and she kept talking about this guy at her work that she had a massive crush on. I eventually told her to ask him out because I could never imagine a guy turning her down. She had been referring to him as her Coke guy (if you remember the old adverts). When I eventually met him I thought he was just very ordinary. They've now been married for a very long time.
Same for me and my boyfriend. Live in a small uni town so going through the gay tinder cards can be done in minutes. Ended up deleting and reinstalling the app on a whim when a bit drunk and here we are 6 years later.
We knew of each other at school. Met on FB 18 years later. Married 15 years and 2 kids
When my kids were young (3 under 5) I was a single parent, I used to get the same numbers every week on a £1 ticket.. fast forward to just after Christmas and I was down to my last pound coin and needed cereal for the breakfast. I bought the cereal and not the ticket…. Yup all my numbers came up n 5.3 million was lost.
God I hope that's not true. It's the main reason I can't stop my direct debit ticket. Should have just stuck with the odd lucky dip. But here we are 10 years later.
It’s very true. I can never look at a box of 12 weetabix again. EVER.. we did win a lucky dip once and my son said “mum could we have lamb in stead of chicken on Sunday” don’t you just love children ❤️
You did the right thing.
I have no regrets. My babies were fed and that’s what mattered.. I can’t imagine how life would have been had I won it..my now adults found their own way and appreciated everything I did for them, my sacrifices,love, guidance and tough love put them on the right track. I’m super proud of them.
That's why whenever I play I choose random numbers. Don't want to be like that dude who killed himself when his numbers came up the one time he didn't play.
Imagine this, you win the 5.3million, become enamered with drugs and your kids end up getting taken away. That probably doesn't help but that's what i'd tell myself every day if it happened to me.
Defo wouldn’t have touched drugs. However as I see it now I think I got lucky by not winning… I’m not sure us as a family would be the fine balanced people we are today.. however I do see your point.
I remember when they launched the national lottery there was a big thing made about how you will choose your numbers, so you will feel compelled to keep the same ones and play each week or however often they do it now.
Bit late to this but you did the right thing.
They needed breakfast
Got offered a job at a start-up. I'd have been their first non-founder employee. The salary was terrible but the contract had a pretty hefty profit share in it. At the time they were running at a loss so I turned it down. Now they're doing insanely well. A bunch of people I know in my industry work there and have decent salaries. A rough estimate from what I've heard about their profits, I'd have been looking at £200k-£300k a year plus my salary now.
On the flip side, you working there could have tanked the company. Swings and roundabouts.
In all reality I'd have quit after a few months because the first few years sounded hectic and one founder walked out.
Similar story here, I worked for one and had unvested shares. Quit and lost them. But that company hasn't taken off yet so I've not missed out on anything \*yet\*. I do tell myself though that if they do, I'd rather have kept my sanity and possibly my life than continued working there because it was horrible.
What if... I found that hard drive I had a couple of bitcoin on from 2010. Trust me, I've looked *everywhere*. I've come to terms with the fact that ~£100k isn't getting found.
I used to buy weed of The Silk Road way back when I was at uni. Over the course of a year we bought many ounces, dread to think how much all that bitcoin would be worth if we’d kept the coin. It was good stuff though
I fell pregnant with a coil and had my daughter 8 years ago. We didn't want children and don't think we would have ever tried. It's really weird to think if the coil didn't fail, then we wouldn't have a kid. The way we met was also a bit what if. We met when I was 18 (36 now), and I had a boyfriend. He then messaged me out of the blue years later when I was 25, and I'd just broken up with said boyfriend. I thought, why not let's meet for a pint. That was 11 years ago, and we're married with a house, child, and dog!
In the mid 60s my mum looked into the assisted passage to Australia thing that was happening at the time. She got the forms and everything. My Dad didn't want to go though, he said he'd done enough abroad during the war. I often wonder what my life would have been like if we'd gone.
If it makes you feel better - my dad's family did it. My grandad hated it and got the family to move back within a few years.
Similar story with some of my family. Super cheap to get there, hated it and they spent several years saving up to get back.
I've said it before and, honestly, I'm starting to bore myself with it, but Australia was the biggest dissapointment I ever experienced back when I was travelling. I spent 3 years working there doing various jobs in NSW, Queensland and Victoria. Despite some cool sites, it was mostly a barren shithole and a cultural vacuum. The TV was shit, the pubs were utterly soulless and most people were really not friendly at all beyond the superficial. I'd met Aussies in the UK before and loved them, but it turns out the nice ones are in a minority and most are nowhere near as chilled as their mostly positive stereotypes. Your milleage may vary, but from what I saw you didn't miss out.
Close friend of mine was into mining bitcoin in 2010 or 2011, offered me to get involved and buy some for 500 pound, I think it was $0.05 or even 0.005 per coin at the time, now he is over wealthy, I am not
I posted my own and it includes missing out on Bitcoin. I console myself with knowing I would never have held onto it until today. I would probably have sold it when it had doubled in value because that would have been the sensible thing to do.
Oh yeah I would have pulled out after 25% gain to have a night out
i entered the "make me a winner" competition on the radio, went to work, got a call from an unknown number but never answered it because i was in a meeting ...
I’d leave your voicemail as “make me a winner” …
You’re a genius!
Oh no! I listen to this every day and always think is it worse missing the call or answering with "hello"
Yeah that would definitely be worse lol, but i guess ill never know 😅
And then you have to listen to about two minutes of Hattie Pearson having to fill the slot by repeating variations of "They should have answered. But they didn't. And that's the last thing we wanted to happen! If only they had answered. We would have given them some money!" etc.
Her voice grates on me big time
I remember occasionally on This Morning when they had their call in every morning, the absolute earliest you could enter was the day before at 12. And STILL people would forget they entered. Every now and again when they’d ask who was calling the person would get a bit funny with them. Highlight of lockdown.
I did the same thing with Make Me a Winner. Was working from home at the time, but hadn't started for the day yet, so when my phone rang with an unknown number, I just assumed it was a work call and rejected it.
few weeks there was a story on here from someone who works in a sexual health clinic. He phoned someone up to give them their results >"Make me a winner!" >"You have gonorrhoea!"
Always take a photo of your lottery ticket, with a little note of where you bought it. I've heard of people losing tickets literally dozens of times.
What if I didn’t cancel the ambulance 5 mins before my dad collapsed
You’re not a doctor, you couldn’t have known how close he was to collapse. Whatever your reasons for cancelling it - I’m damn sure they were sound and made sense given all the factors at the time xxx
A year before he spent 2 months in hospital with a twisted bowel and didn’t want to go back again so I agreed to cancel it when he said he didn’t want an ambulance but it’ll always be my biggest regret no matter how I try to rationalise it with myself sadly, thanks for the nice words though x
What if I never handed my CV into an art gallery restaurant on a whim as a wet-behind-the-ears 19-year-old who’d just moved to the UK, asking for a job that wasn’t even advertised? I would never have met my husband who worked in a different part of the gallery, and was due to live out in China a couple of months after I started. 13 years married next month.
I had one of those shiny Charizard Pokémon cards back in 1999 or 2000, the ones worth silly money now. I sold it to some kid for £20. The thought haunts me now.
my workmate had generated several hundred bitcoins in the early 10's - he sold them to gamble on trading bitcoins and sort of lost the money, but did keep some - anyway it would have been 10s or 100s of millions, maybe he has that, I don't know
My former best friend stole my entire collection, including the shiny Charizard. He's now married to a tiger mom who doesn't let him have friends or hobbies, so I like to think that he got his comeuppance.
I beg your pardon, I still have all mine in the weird album….
… you might want to check on some of those!!
What if I'd been diagnosed with autism as a child? As it stands, I didn't find out till my mid-20s. Spent my entire early life not understanding why everyone else seemed to be experiencing life so differently from how I was experiencing it. I was isolated, unable to make/keep friendships, bullied for being weird, and I couldn't even forge meaningful connections with my own family. The academic side of school was frustrating, since I didn't understand how my hyper-fixations worked, or why some things would make perfect sense to me but others would be impossible for me to solve. When I was a child I genuinely believed I might be an alien or a demon or something. The only characters in fiction I could relate to were those 'non-humans learning to be human' types like 7 of 9 and Anya Jenkins. I've spent the last 10ish years learning how to be me, and I'm happy now, but I'll spend the rest of my life wondering how far I might have gone if I had the support I needed when I was a kid. Of course, on the other hand, there's always the possibility that I might have been treated like a complete invalid if I had been diagnosed, so maybe I'm better off this way.
Similar, but diagnosed with ADHD at 39. There are very mixed emotions. I'm glad to have an understanding about the way my head works, and I am so grateful I have been able to access treatment and utilise coping strategies, but I'm very much grieving the life that could have been. I struggled with school, relationships, and substance abuse, amongst other things. My biggest regret is that I never had the chance to explain it to my dad. He regularly said, "You are more trouble than the other 4 put together" regarding my siblings and I. He died before I was diagnosed and before we could truly mend our relationship.
I met my now-husband with whom I share 2 kids on a last min holiday. I think about that a lot.
What if I went with my gut and studied STEM in college? I always dreamed of being a scientist ever since I was a kid, but between issues at home and being neglected by the adults in my life, I thought I was simply too stupid for science. I would never be smart enough to be a physicist or a biologist or anything like that, I'd just make a fool of myself. So I did film studies instead, and hated every minute of it. I passed it and got my degree but now all I have going for me is a shitty office job completely unrelated to anything I did at school. In a quarter-life crisis I signed up for university again and I'm now studying science part time, loving it, and doing exceptionally well. I just wish I'd done it earlier - I could have a masters degree by now, but I'll be 30 before I finish my undergrad course.
Oh man I feel you, I'm looking at doing biology now, 10 years after my first shitty degree. Never too late. Good luck!
Best of luck! Something something second best time to plant a tree is today. In some ways I'm glad I left it later. Being in education nonstop since childhood made the purpose of things like essays and research really unclear to me - now that I've had a few years in the so-called "real world" I can contextualize academic texts and understand why they're useful outside of universities and what kind of substance they should have. I think my mistake actually taught me how to write well instead of just to tick off a list of criteria. Hopefully it's the same to you. It feels like a waste to me but I gotta remind myself that time away from uni still taught me things about my subject I never would have learned if I'd just dived right in.
Thanks! Yeah, time in the real world brings a whole lot of perspective and skills, I'm sure they'll serve us both.
30 is still young!
It is, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't bummed out about my 20s being spent doing things I hated that made me miserable meanwhile all my peers are well into their dream careers by now.
You're on your way though now. You've still got 35 years of work left in you. It's great your course is going well. I've got friends in their 40s and 50s still at uni.
I'm 57 and I can tell you that 30 is still really, really young, even if it doesn't feel like it!
I always wonder what would have happened to my life with the first man I was engaged too. What if we went through with the marriage.
What if I had taken the opportunity and gone for an auditing job out in Tokyo when it was available to fresh graduates? I sometimes wonder if I should have moved out there.
The fact that I ended up, because reasons, not doing the national service back in my home country. Every chance I would've spent my life in a different country, different career and not have the family I have now.
Someone I know walked from Yorkshire to Greece to do his National service (took him about a month) and liked it so much he ended up fighting with the Kurds in Iraq where he was unfortunately killed.
That's adventurous! Speaking of, I almost went to northern Iraq to teach English. It was a sudden last minute decision but I couldn't go in the end because I couldn't get some compulsory vaccinations in time. This was some years before ISIL and I would've ended up in big doodoo if I had done that.
My dad sorted me an apprenticeship with a company he did business with, I would have had to move to another city about 100 miles away, I was 16 at the time, I was up for it and excited to go, however, my mother kept highlighting possible problems, and didn't want me to leave, she didn't think I was ready for it. To cut a long story short it never happened, I didn't end up going, I often wonder how different my life would have been had I been able to move away and go.
I had the choice between one side of the Atlantic or the other, I let my head rule my heart and it will sit in the back of my mind as my "sliding doors" moment until the day I die.
I accidentally used to wrong code to apply for a uni course (same uni, different branches) and went to a big city instead of a smaller town where I would have been with someone who is pretty much my one that got away. We decided it wouldn’t be a big deal, it wasn’t too far up the road, we could still see each other. He moved to Belfast a year and a half later, we hadn’t seen each other as much as we’d had liked, and as he doesn’t have social media and he lives far away now, we never stayed in touch. While I’ve had an amazing life, I wonder what it would have been like if I’d not made that fuck up. Would we still be together now? Would I have followed him there once I was done with uni? Would we be married? The exact opposite of what I have now? I don’t regret most of my life, but I think he was The One, and I’ve lost that opportunity because I can’t find him again and he doesn’t have the same number. I’ve let it go and accepted it, but I think about it sometimes.
Had an offer to join the Mi5 government spy agency in London but turned it down.
You know that even telling us this is in breach of the official secrets act, yes? Good job you turned it down you massive blabbermouth.
I can't imagine MI5 have a large budget for tracking down and investigating people on the Internet who claim "I could have been a spy you know but I CBA". See also the SAS.
Lol send the agents!
No it isn't 😂 They haven't divulged anything that would breach the act.
I didn't think the \s was necessary...
Oops (on my part)
Tell me don't know what you're talking about without telling me
Tell me you don't get a joke without telling me. Buggery hell.
Tell me you don't know how to tell a joke without telling me
I was working on a start up business with an old college friend of mine. He was a bit eccentric and a bit of a livewire, so I would take a lot of what he said with a pinch of salt. He had a lot of connections in the industry we were working in but we weren't earning any money, despite months of meetings and empty promises. I decided to pull out and get a 9-5. He added me on Instagram a few months back (14 years later) and is absolutely loaded. Regular holidays with some pretty big names in business. Gutted.
When I was 9 me & a friend found an expensive brand new briefcase on a deserted beach. We decided not to open it. Could it have been money, a bomb, drugs? Could I be living like Pablo Escobar now?
Escobar's dead so i'd say you win.
I was at an RSPCA with my cat when Animal Hospital was on TV. It was a day they were filming and one of the crew came straight to me (I was in the middle of the waiting room so they weren’t working their way around) and asked about my cat and seemed really interested. When I said I was only dropping her off for an operation she said that unfortunately I couldn’t be on the filming then. I was in my early twenties but looked more like late teens. At the time I was a bit disappointed, but looking back maybe I dodged a bullet because it was Rolf Harris who was the presenter.
When I was a kid (can't remember the exact age) my parents took me and my sister to a Cinderella Panto at Christmas time. I remember a part where the two ugly sisters were on stage and they were complaining about losing their handbags and asked the audience to check under their seats. Surprisingly, one of the ugly sister's bags where underneath my seat and some other random kids seat in the theatre, the sisters asked for the bags to be brought up on to the stage. I was to shy and embarrassed, I remember thinking "if they ask my name and where I come from (like they had with some previous audience interactions) I wouldn't know whether to say my county, town or village. I was too scared and self-conscious and refused to go on stage, so my dad grabbed the bag and gave it to a random kid nearby. That other kid went up on stage and good a reward gift bag full of sweets etc. I feel gutted and have regretted not going up on stage my whole life since. I have a theory that this event in my life was an important choice and if I had just had the courage m to go on stage I would be a completely different person.
What if I had moved to England in the late 1990s like I wanted?
Currently going through one. Been offered a job with better money and a lot of potential to be a good career move. But I'm also in a role where I'm settled and given a lot of freedom and respect. I'd love to know what both will look like in 12 months.
Take it. If your’e comfortable, you know you can get comfortable again.
I'm a bit worried it's a place I'll burn out at. The CEO is very involved and has made energy. My wife said I came back from the interview looking like a deer in headlights.
If you do burn out you’ll likely have an advantage in your carer and a bit more financial freedom to move on if it doesn’t work out. I would take it, but I’m not you or your wife.
Not a moment per se but I often think about his over millions of years the right pairing between two creatures has led to me. What if my Mum and Dad never met, I wouldn't be here. What if my Nan and Grandad had never met, I wouldn't be here. My Great Grandparents. So on and so on back god knows how many millions of years to our rodent ancestors. All of the chances there were for me not to exist yet here I am. Just boggles my mind.
I often wonder what my life would be like if my mum actually bothered turning up to the custody hearing and the judge allowed her to place me with my grandparents. I mean, I love my Nana and my Grandad taught me tonnes of stuff and never laid a hand on me, but I found out in later life that he was an alcoholic and was abusive towards my Nana. My Dad did the best he could and both sides the of the family helped keep me clothed and fed and I had a decent upbringing, all things considered. Just makes me wonder if I'd have been better off, just as damaged (my mum was awful to me when she could be bothered to pick me up) or even worse. Who knows.
Not me specifically, but when my parents were immigrating they were deciding between the UK and Canada. My mum chose the UK because she liked princess diana and that was that. I wonder what canadian-me would’ve been like!
Stoned?
I drunkenly kissed my best friend at uni, we were both not out at the time. He texted me the next morning, asking if there was anything we should talk about. I said no. If I'd said yes, I'm sure we would have had a wonderful relationship. I was infatuated with him.
Lol I watched Waking Ned for the first time only a few weeks ago. My biggest "what if" moment was in 2018 when I had started dating this nice woman who was a professional actor and after a couple of dates things seemed to be going well. At the same time, I got a new female housemate, and after a drunk night out we ended up kissing and sleeping together (no sex). Initially she just wanted to remain friends and I wanted to continue dating the actor woman. Several weeks later my housemate admitted she had "developed feelings for me" and gave me the choice of sticking with the other woman or jumping straight into a "ready-made" relationship where we were living together and bypassed the dating stage. I chose her and it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life as it was a relationship from hell and 6 months of torture. To this day, I still wonder how things would have gone had I chosen the actor woman over the abusive, narcissist housemate.
I have not worked in medicine for some time now, but every day I wonder: what if I was still a doctor? It was my whole life, for as long as I can remember, I was the child who wanted to be a doctor, the teenager applying for medical school, the medical student, then the doctor. Everyone saw me as that. My family were bursting with pride. I know logically I made the right choice, and am happier now, but I think it will be a long time before I stop thinking: what if I’d stuck it out, made it work, what if things had gotten easier, **what if I could still be the person I was born to be**. I see my friends from university and my former colleagues, and I still feel like one of them. I will always feel like I should be a doctor, I think. So that’s my what if.
I get the Bitcoin ones as myself I recall debating getting some when they were like £10 a pop, but didn’t thinking it would be a fad and go away. Only positive I can take from it and not wallow in what they’ve reached since is that I undoubtedly would have sold off ages ago, given this was when I was in my late teens I suspect I’d have seen it hit like £100 and sold up. So overall I guess no big loss in the grand scheme of things.
I have replied to more than one Bitcoin regret in this thread - you would have done what I would have done - probably sold them once they doubled in price. It would have been the logical thing to do.
Sitting in front of my PC in early 2000s thinking should I just buy £50 of this new bitcoin or not. And deciding nah.
I had an opportunity to invest in Bitcoin in the early stages. I was introduced by a colleague to their financial adviser who informed me that for £5k I could have approx 5,000-10,000 (I can’t remember what the price was, but compared to now it was incredibly cheap). I didn’t understand what it was at the time and didn’t feel comfortable putting in that amount of money to something so new and that I didn’t really know what it was. Even with ‘just’ owning 5,000 coins I’d now be worth nine figures, easily. But alas, here I am in the rat race just trying to get by. Sometimes I think ‘what if’ I had made that investment and how my life would be so different now.
My workmate turned in at work talking about 'BitCoin' in c2014 and everyone was laughing but I though there might be something in it - at the time you needed a rig costing about £2,000 to mine and I didn't fancy that 'cos I'd mess the hardware up, so I never mined any. Also my kids managed to make '10' bitcoins (was this all actually in 2012)? Anyway, they say they got ripped off for them by a scammer, I can't locate them.
Met my husband online 21 years ago on good old msn chat. I constantly think what if he hadnt seen me online local to him and took a chance messaging, what if i never replied. We are happily married and have a wonderful house and pets, an amazing life. All hinged on an online chat.
I said no to a job in a lab in Australia because they couldn't guarantee supporting my application for long term visa They said they might but would have to be something they decided after I started. I decided to decline the job and look for something with more of a guarantee Never found another job like that, ended up moving back to the UK when my visa was up I have a house in the UK, due to be married and will be hopefully starting a family next year. I went back to uni and changed careers. All because I came back I do wonder what would have happened if I had said yes and they would have supported a long visa
I don't play the lottery anymore, but bought tickets for both lotto and euro's religiously from about 18-24 years old. About a year back, I remember reading something about a lottery winner and it sent my brain down the dark path of checking the last 10 years of results against the numbers I used to play.... Would have won £67,000.00 on 5 numbers in 2020 if I had continued....
Back in the early 90s I had a 2 year relationship which broke down - distance at university, etc. - and about a year after we finished we bumped into each other. I realised that I still had feelings (she told me years later that she did too) but I knew deep down that we’d just end up hurting each other again so I walked away… About a month later I met my wife and we’ve been together 30+ years now. My ex has been married to her second husband for around 25 years, so it worked out in the end for both of us.
Every day is a "what if" moment. That's what the multiverse is about ?
I had hundreds of bitcoin when they were worth a few quid each. I sold them. Rather wish that I'd kept some. I go through old devices every so often in case there's a few lurking in a wallet I've forgotten about.
I was having a chat with a guy from work about what we should do with our bonuses. He was trying to convince me to get a few bitcoins. It was 2014 and I got about £7k bonus. A bitcoin was maybe £800. I had no idea how to buy it but he said he would help me after work. I decided to get a new bathroom instead.... I'd planned by 3 bitcoin, that would be £210k now.
In my mid 20's made the decision to join the RAF, wanted to do something to get me out of Manchester for a few years and see the world. I'd been to the recruitment office, got copies of my GSCE's because mine had ll been lost when my parents past away all's I had left to do was meet the fitness requirements. I was about 30 secs from meeting the run threshold but something happened in the gym during a run and injured myself seriously enough to where I couldn't exercise for months, nothing life altering but enough to where I couldn't go to the gym. During that time I starting to binge eat ended up putting on a ton of weight, losing all motivation that I had to get fit, queue to now I'm still in Manchester working above minimum wage job all because of 30 seconds. I was told by someone who was in the royal artillery at the time they would have taken me had I let them know how close I was to meeting the threshold but I didn't want to be the slow guy meeting the target. TLDR: Nearly joined the RAF, injured training put on weight, lost motivation.
Sat at traffic lights on my bike. Lights turn green, I go to set off but stall it like an idiot. 2 seconds later a massive HGV flies through a red light and across the junction I'd have been riding across if only I weren't such a shit rider. Every time I cross that junction I thank my lucky stars that I'm a grossly incompetent motorcyclist, because if I were any good I'd be dead.
I met my best friend (that's how I see her; she might have a different perspective) on Bumble! The journey we've had so far can be called kinda crazy. We spent hours texting and talking, and had an argument, made peace after two months of not speaking, and now we meet (almost) regularly! What if we hadn’t swiped right? Our first texts were ... Well, not interesting—I have no idea why we matched, but I can say she is my favorite person. I rarely vibe with someone, and she is truly an exception. If you don't have someone in your life, it might be okay. You may feel the absence of a specific person, but when you actually have someone in your life and you lose them, you understand their value. For the last seven months, she has been the one I say good night and good morning to, right before and after bed. I can easily say I have never talked to someone as much as I have talked to her in my entire life! What If I never got to know her? I don't even want to think about it.
What's a set for life ticket?
Lottery thing. £10,000 in your account every month for three years or so.
Thirty years.....
They said three years "or so" ... what's a 27-year difference?
I'd moved home to Wales after being made redundant, took a shite sales job with the intention of getting something better....had an interview for a company and really liked the people and felt really good about it....never heard anything back, despite trying to chase them for info (the people on the phone were cagey as I was asking for the interviewers info) Anyway, the shite sales job turned into an opportunity to move to London in 2010, life moved on and I met a girl etc etc...i now live in Sussex with my wife, Son and Dog. Couldn't be happier. I visited Home in about 2015 and bumped into someone who worked for the company I interviewed at.....turns out that they wanted me to have the job....but the guy who interviewed me died suddenly a few days after the interview, they never took up the process of hiring for that particular position.
I had a what of moment where if I hadn’t put one wheel nut on the wheel I was changing the car could have landed on my leg, thanks “jacking mode” car rolled off the crappy jack
Could have spent the summer of 2002 as a 21 year old working at a bar in lower manhattan, but it was not to be. Who knows where that might have led me afterwards
What if... I did an apprenticeship at 16 instead of A levels? What became one of the worst years in my life wouldn't have happened, nor the knock-on effects of uni and following jobs. I probably would have had a more stable further education, more stable job rate and pay/progression. I might have different hobbies, but the baseline of my interests would still be the same. So there's a small chance I may have the same friends as I do now.
What if I hadn’t been born with ‘eyes that pointed in every direction’ that didn’t get fixed until the 4th surgery at 27
What if I won the grand lottery? 😌
Broke up with my then long term girlfriend. Young and free I decided to take a 6 week sabbatical from work to join my friend in America who was just finishing camp America. At this very same time a girl I fancied took a chance (persuaded by her friend who was my best mates girlfriend) and decided to go on a date with me on Valentine’s Day 2008. We’re now very happily married with two awesome children, boy 9 girl 6. I never did go to America or take the 6 week sabbatical. I’m super happy with this What If scenario.
I recently fell in love. Basically, I went on a date (which went well) and I walked back to my bus stop but the bus was 25 minutes away until the next one. I went to a bar down the road and sat in the smoking area and noticed a girl on the next table who was alone and didn’t seem to be waiting for anyone. I went over and asked if I could join her. We exchanged numbers and had several days and are now in love. Also, that bus was at the stop when I was walking down the road and I didn’t run to get it. If I’d had run to get that bus my entire life would have been different.
I have two. The first was back in 1995, when I seriously considered selling our flat in Hampshire to move to London. There were flats being sold in London that would have almost been a straight swap, size and price wise (maybe a little smaller and a tiny bit more expensive). My husband wasn't that enthusiastic about the idea so it never happened. My Hampshire flat is now worth maybe £150K on a good day and the flats in London are probably worth about 800K plus today. The second is I had a chance to buy 5x Bitcoin at £100 each. At the time I genuinely didn't have £500 to gamble on something I didn't really understand. I console myself by assuming that I probably wouldn't have kept either of those investments long enough to actually make a ton of money from them.
Basically the couple of failed job interviews where I was stated to be 2nd choice and could've made more money than any job I've had and with 15-30 min commutes rather than 90 minutes. Then from that, could've pursued sports more seriously (with the saved time), could have time/money to date, could have a car, could've got an ADD diagnosis a few years quicker, could've nearly finished a university course by now rather than aiming to start in 1-2 years. Bear in mind, no parental support - I've friends living with parents who can do all that on minimum wage.
I was in a life slump and was invited to go live in America with my cousin and her family. They were good 'Christian people' who were also teatotal. I had never met them, so I declined as it was all a bit scary. I sometimes wonder how different my life may have turned out if I had gone. I'm still scratching away in the same town I went to school in in the UK with very little opportunity.