The best piece of advice I ever got (and proceeded to totally ignore for 15 years) was that not everything or everyone is worth the investment of your time and energy - and that time and energy are a much more valuable thing to invest than money.
So when one Reddit user asked:
People Explain Which Things In Their Life They Regret Putting Time And Energy Into
The first thing that came to mind was my auntie giving me her "mmmhm I told you" face from beyond the grave. Nothing, not even death, can hold back a sassy woman of color.
I kind of wonder if these people have ancestors giving them afterlife snark for some of the crap they "invested" in.
Online, But Going Nowhere
Arguments with idiots online. It's just a waste of time and it never seems to go anywhere.
This.
Specifically rightwing trolls waging campaigns of disinformation. They want you to get frustrated and waste your time, and they want you to argue so that they can spam their BS.
Best approach is to spend no more than five minutes posting a fact-check, and then move on.
Fitting In
GiphyTrying to fit in. Wasted years finding myself.
- evilnaos
Great comment. Life is much easier and less stressful when you stop pretending and start being yourself. Not giving a f*ck about some absurd social norms can lift a lot of weight from your shoulders.
- Bacha-
Contact
Friendships that were only kept alive because I made it so. I don't mind initiating the majority of contact with other people or organize the majority of events with other people, someone has to do it.
But if I'm the only one in a friendship doing it and once I stop the contact is literally non-existent, its probably better to not invest that energy into a person.
Sometimes I'm Bitter
People who don't deserve it. I've realized there was someone who I was a friend to, but they definitely weren't a friend to me.
Perhaps regret is too strong a word. She's fighting some hard battles.
I think about her a lot. Then I wish her well. Sometimes I mean it. Sometimes I'm bitter.
- ChocSyn
You'll Need It Later
When I grew up in the 80's I had an horrible penmanship and I had to spend countless hours trying to correct it because everyone was telling me that it would be a huge handicap latter in life when I'll have to work.
I've been working for 20 years and I never had to write anything to anyone using a pen.
- inckalt
Love Me Back
Trying so hard for years to get my mostly absent drug addicted parents to just love me back.
That sucks, I'm sorry. Just because your parents didn't love you, that doesn't mean that you are unlovable. It just means you were born to shitty parents. You're still incredible.
- mappinit
Military Career
GiphyMy military career. Once they broke me and I needed help, they tossed me aside. I was just a worn out tool.
- mwr885
Same here. I try and think of what I gained during my service and always come up empty.
I'm still paying back an "overpayment" that happened back in 2010. Completely cut off my benefits 5 years after I EAC'd saying I owed them money.
Paying To NOT Play
Certain mobile games that have "spend time or money" designs.
The time is never worth it and the money definitely isn't.
Just delete it and you'll have forgotten about it in a couple days
I love that most of those games you end up paying real money to skip playing game, buying the so called 'time savers' to get the pay for cash quicker or not have to sit through cool downs.
Real money, to not play the game.
But you want to charge $10 for a complete game, no wait times, no unlocks, and it's going to flop because it's a 'bad deal'.
The mobile market is trash, sellers and buyers alike, and it's dragging every other gaming market with it.
- Mr_ToDo
College
The whole college process.
Man, going to a competitive high school makes it feel like life or death. I spent way too much time stressing and worrying about not getting into a top school and then ending up being a poor failure.
I'm 3 years out of high school and I'm so ashamed at all the unnecessary effort I put in. It literally didn't matter at all.
Make It Work
Trying to make an ill-fitting job promotion work. Last August I was offered a promotion that made me a salaried employee with benefits. TBH, the main reason I took it was that it meant being paid biweekly instead of monthly. Only being paid once a month can be a gigantic pain.
Anywho, it was awful from the start. What my job title said I did and what my boss expected of me were two different things. He basically felt like he "owned" me, and managed to completely dominate my life even though I worked from home. Seriously, I was working 7 days a week routinely. Boss and I had a few skirmishes, culminating in a big blow-up in mid-April. At that point, I quit on the spot.
In other words, I deliberately quit a salaried, stay-at-home professional job to take an essential-worker job in the middle of a global pandemic. It was that bad.
Thing is, I work physically hard now, but it is unbelievable how much happier I am, and my weekends belong to nobody but me.
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "
" to +1 (310) 299-9390 to talk to him about it.
- People Share The Bravest Thing They Have Ever Done - George ... ›
- People Divulge The Real Reason They're Actually Single - George ... ›
- People Share The Bravest Thing They Have Ever Done - George Takei ›
"People of Reddit, what is the dumbest reason your (ex) partner gave for cheating?"
So Much For "Till Death do Us Part".
"'You are dying! Do you really want me alone when you are dead?'"
"I was fighting cancer."
"He also told me that I was disgusting and he felt gross touching me."
"Luckily, both types of cancer are out of my life."- Mr_BigDuck
You Could Have At Least Left A Message!
"'You didn't answer your phone, was I supposed to spend Saturday night alone?'"
"I was at work, and so were you, we worked together you f*cking moron."- sixesand7s
Love At First Sight... Or Not
"She met someone that she immediately saw herself marrying."
"A month after we broke up she moved across the country, got married, called me to tell me she made a mistake, got divorced, moved back home, got pregnant and then got married again."- Zarrush
Gonna Have To Do Better Than That...
"Her response once I caught her was that she was flat-out horny."
"But after I said that’s why you have a boyfriend it was kinda funny how she went dead silent."- PuzzleheadedFarm7417
Um...
"He said that he cheated on me because I wanted to have too much sex."
"More than 5 years later I still can't find any logic in that."- Etrixie
So Much For Commitment
"'It's not like we're married'."
"Apparently I can't expect respect from someone who goes from calling me 'love of my life' to blowing her high school shag toy when he comes back to town."- FortGeek
Cartoons Button GIF by NickelodeonGiphyIt Never Is...
“'It’s not what you think it is!'”
"After I walked in on them making out."
"While she was on his lap."
"Both without shirts."- MrSirChris
Two Whole Weeks...
"I couldn't have sex for two weeks so I could recover from surgery so she thought it wasn't cheating'."- Henchforhire
What The Actual...
"My ex-girlfriend said I forgot you were alive."
"For details, I wasn't in the military, I was at university."- Ali8ly
scared star wars GIF by Hyper RPGGiphyThat Only Makes It Worse
"It was his kid's mom so it didn't count."- kittenxx96
"In Sickness And In Health"...Oops!
“'I have needs for sex you aren’t helping me with!'"
"Said to me the day I get home from spending a week in the hospital with kidney failure (lupus)."- EndlesslyUnfinished
We Can Only "Open" Our Hearts So Much...
"Well, I know this guy that was convinced he was in an open relationship, except he forgot to let his girlfriend know.."
"She found out 7 years into the 'open relationship'."
"With multiple women, in 4 continents."
"Oh he also had a book where he'd categorize them."- ProfessionalSpite866
Episode 2 Player GIF by ABC NetworkGiphySanta? SANTA?!?!
"My serial cheater ex-once told me while in a fit of tears."
"'I can't stop cheating, I just have so many issues, my mom lied about Santa when I was a kid and it really f*cked me up'."
"'I don't think I can trust people because of it so I cheat'."- pastelflorist
No One Likes To Be Treated Like A Piece Of Meat...
“It’s like if you order the same subway sandwich for a year, eventually you’re gonna get bored of it."
"But you try another flavor and when you go back to the original one it’s better than you remembered'.”
"Felt not so good being compared to a 6 inch BLT tbh."- NucularOrchid
Oh, nothing, except commitment and fidelity...
"'She was prettier than you, what did you expect?'"
"We were engaged and had been dating for 3 years."- kathjoy
No doubt all these poor people are grateful for dodging the bullet that staying with these people would have been.
Even if it can't quite make up for the pain and embarrassment these experiences brought them.
Redditor InsertBurnsHere wanted to discuss the world's most unresolved issues, so they asked:
"What is the biggest unsolved mystery in human history?"
The mysteries that haunt me are all murder stories.
When will we find the killers?!
The Absconded
Bank Robbery Heist GIF by ADWEEKGiphy"Who was behind the Gardner Museum heist? Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art was taken, and we have little to no clue who was behind it, and none of the paintings have surfaced."
Stillwater215
The Linear Truth
"In 1893, British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans purchased some ancient stones with mysterious inscriptions on them at a flea market in Athens. On a later trip to the excavations at Knossos on the island of Crete, he recognized one of the symbols from his stones and began a study of the engraved tablets being uncovered at various sites on the island."
"He discovered two different systems, which he called Linear A and Linear B. While Linear B was deciphered in the early 1950s (it turned out to represent an early form of Greek), Linear A, above, has still not been deciphered."
"There is an entire culture of information that predates much of our history, a window into ancient humanity that is simply locked away from us because we don't know how to read it."
Atamask
Exact Dates
"An active one in the archaeology world is the exact time frame of when humans made it to the Americas. The date keeps getting pushed back with more controversial discoveries that then just turn to evidence as they pile up. It’s a fascinating story to see unfold."
DocAuch22
"Yeah I like this one too, I think many of the traces of early settlement are likely submerged. Sea levels were much lower during the ice age and the majority of human settlements are along the coasts so a huge piece of our history is probably lying on the seafloor completely undisturbed and possibly well preserved."
who519
Monarchs
"So the Monarch Butterfly migrates to Mexico and back every year. During the year there are a full 4 generations of butterflies that live and die during the journey. Upon returning back from Mexico, the butterfly manages to find the same trees it's relative started out at despite never having been there."
MasonS98
Dark Energy
Loop Space GIF by xponentialdesignGiphy"We like to think we understand the universe and that physics is a well grounded discipline, and in some ways it is. However we have no idea what dark matter or dark energy is and yet we think it makes up 27% and 68% of the universe respectively."
Ok_Passenger_4202
The Universe is vast and scary, like the sea.
The End
Kimmy Schmidt Netflix GIF by Unbreakable Kimmy SchmidtGiphy"The final words of the emperor Titus were 'I have but one regret'. We don't know and never will what that regret was."
Ayearinbooks
5000 BCE
"That most of human history is undocumented and we will never know our entire history as a species. We didn’t start recording our history until 5000 BCE, we do know we shifted to agrarian societies around 10,000 BCE but beyond that we have no idea what we were like as a species, we will never know the undocumented parts of our history that spans 10s of thousands of years."
"We are often baffled by the technological progress of our ancient ancestors, like those in SE Asia who must have been masters of the sea to have colonized the variety of islands there and sailed vast stretches of ocean to land on Australia and New Zealand."
"What is ironic is we currently have an immense amount of information about our world today and the limited documented history of our early days as a species but that is only a small fraction of our entire history."
patlaff91
How Big?
"I don't know about 'biggest,' but I always thought the Voynich Manuscript was very interesting. A huge book written in an unknown language or cipher that has never been translated or decoded with diagrams of plant species that don't exist. Lots of theories surrounding it, but no definitive answers as to the origins or the content."
AbortionSurvivor777
Who made it?
"Not sure if it's THE biggest mystery. But the Antikythera mechanism is pretty wild."
"Dated to at least 60BC, possibly as old as 200BC, it's as complex as clockworks that didn't show up until the 1400s, over a millennium later!"
"It's just such a strange technological anomaly. Who made it? What else did they make and why haven't we found more stuff as advanced?"
SmokedMessias
Magic Tins
Video Recycle GIF by Jenny LorenzoGiphy"Why did we all just globally decide that those blue Dutch cookie tins hold sewing supplies?"
MysteriousStaff3388
"They’re large enough to hold sewing scissors, along with other notions, and made of metal so that the scissors and needles can’t poke through them. Or at least that’s the consensus r/sewing seems to have come to."
butter_milk
My grandma had like 20 of those tins.
Good times.
Do you have any mysteries to add? Let us know in the comments below.
Redditor onlyusemefeets wanted to hear about the worst of everyone's family, so they asked:
"When did you find out that someone in your family is evil?"
The Reddit community rose to the occasion to shed some light on their family skeletons.
Money Issues
Wild West Fighting GIF by Buyout FootageGiphy"When they ripped apart 3 generations of my family almost immediately after my dad died for a measly $37,000. He's a millionaire. That kinda money is pocket change to him."
Good Lord
"When my 11 year old cousin got cancer."
"Her mom and boyfriend were shooting up her pain medicine. My cousin was in so much pain, she told her Doctors. Thats when the doctors stopped giving her mom a prescription and the nurses dispensed her pain meds at the hospital. Unfortunately they could not keep track of medication while at home so they reported it."
"CPS removed her. She died shortly after in foster care. Parents were never charged."
dead-parrots
Death
"When my dad died of covid my Aunt tried to say she was entitled to some stuff of his since it belonged in the family. She even called a lawyer on us and it was big deal and my mom didn't need to deal with that trying to raise 3 kids on her own so f**k her. She still bothers us about stuff and all it is like plates and some pictures and some other things."
"Sunken Cost Fallacy"
"My brother's addiction has led to him spinning some ridiculous stories. I'm not sure if he is very convincing or if my father chooses to believe him because of some 'sunken cost fallacy,' or he genuinely refuses to give up. But my brother has told lies and stories about me and my siblings to the point that he's the only child who talks to my father anymore. He convinced my father that I forced him to do drugs."
"But I knew my brother was evil when scared away my sister with physical violence. Last month, he went missing for a weeks only to turn up after flipping his car high on pills. My father doesn't know it yet, but my mother is planning on leaving him because my father chooses my brother over her. No one can convince my father that he's enabling. No one can convince my brother to stop. Hard drugs really destroy entire families."
sleepypanda59
A New Family
Frustrated Skip Bayless GIFGiphy"When he purposely excluded his 4 year old son (from a previous relationship) from his wedding to his new spouse, deleted all photos of his son from his social media, and legally signed away all parental rights. He has since had 2 more kids with said new spouse."
FeminaCanadiana
How can parents act that way?
Failure...
"I don't know about evil, but my dad got remarried and has a kid and stepson with his new spouse. All of that would be fine if he didn't pretend that none of us (offspring from first marriage) exist so he can pretend this family is the first family and we never happened."
"Once this realization hit me, I stopped contacting him, and once I stopped putting in the effort, everything else dissipated. We haven't spoken at all. He does not care in the least. I honestly believe that he wishes we never even existed. He is a failure as a father and as a man."
Raindrops_On-Roses
Oh Brother
"When my husband's brother (1 of 5 siblings) said he couldn't make it to our house to plan their mother's funeral because he had to work. Meanwhile we found out he wasn't working because we caught him on ring doorbell entering the moms house to rifle through it while the rest of us were planning the funeral at my house."
Legitimate_Energy257
The End
"When my ex said 'you've been a godsend, I want a divorce.' I had taken time off from work to take care of her parents. She told me this right before her dad died, and she inherited. She found a boyfriend while I was with her parents. She got the house by declaring I had abandoned it. I was with her parents."
rollercoaster_5
Evil
Season 5 Nickelodeon GIFGiphy"When my dad tried to throw my 6 month old sister when he was drunk. That man is a monster in disguise"
iinattanii
So many people really need to be screened for their abilities to raise kids.
Redditor thunderchild10 wanted to discuss everyone's thoughts on the friends with benefits scenario, so they asked:
"What's your opinion of friends with benefits?"
I've never done FWB.
I feel robbed.
After a while...
Friends With Benefits Herkenbaar GIF by GoPlayGiphy"Fun, and fine for a while, but less fulfilling than a relationship. Also, you both need to be good at compartmentalization, otherwise one of you will likely end up catching feelings."
Akiram
Be Clear
"My FWB caught feelings even though we were always clearly communicated as FWB. We were both in a big but really close friends group. I got a gf (she had recently had a bf as well) and she got mad. I ended up losing all my friends. It’s been 4 years, and she actually successfully managed to get 20+ ppl to forget I exist."
"Wouldn’t recommend."
sadbudda
The Rule of Three
"I had 3 throughout college. Two ended in us dating and then breaking up. The only one that worked and lasted two years was me and an ex from high school. We never hung out but were cool after our breakup. Didn’t speak for like three years and then when we were in college we saw each other at the bar, hooked up that night, then like two days later she asked if I wanted to meet up and I said sure."
"Then it just continues for two years. We rarely spoke outside of the bedroom other than like ‘pick me up from the bar’. Overall it was cool but I think it’s very rare. You have to find two people who just don’t have any desire for each other other than when horny, which a lot of times is not the case in one side"
InternationalMouse56
Confusion
"I honestly don't understand it at all. Having any sexual relation with a person whom I don't love and who doesn't love me seems pointless and even scary to me. I guess I am over-sensitive or something, because the thought of being so close to somebody without actually having a connection, an exclusivity, without knowing if this will ever happen again, is genuinely horrific to me."
"I don't care what others do in the bed and with whom, but this kind of relationship is just not for me."
ZidanSufuzki
For Life
Corona Snap GIF by INTO ACTIONGiphy"If they can provide Medical, Dental, Unemployment, and Retirement benefits then they’re a friend for life."
Stupify_Me
Benefits are benefits. I'm in.
Forever
married single ladies GIFGiphy"It didn't work out. We couldn't keep it just friends once we started the benefits. We will celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary in 2 weeks."
dirtysecretsofmine
Hey Buddy
"Very messy. You gotta either be f"k buddies only, dating, or friends only. Trying to keep feelings out of FWB is too difficult."
MarthaTheTRex
"That's a great point. I agree that it's tough to keep feelings out of the equation. I think it's best to just be honest and open with your friend so that you both know the boundaries of the situation and can stick to them. That way, both parties can be sure that they're getting what they need out of the relationship."
Professional-Help114
Taking Chances
"Seems iffy to me if you want the friendship to lay long term. Doesn't someone usually catch feelings, so after the FWB finds a partner they want to keep, it leaves the other party out. Especially if the new bf/gf doesn't want you to be friends with someone you've had sex with."
"Yes? No? I'm not into casual sex for myself, so am I off base?"
lifehappenedwhatnow
Developments
"A lot of people are saying 'someone always inevitably develops feelings' and that it ends badly, but that's not been my experience. I'm still friends with a few of my FWB's that I'm no longer sleeping with over the last couple of years and I'm genuinely happy for them that they've found relationships that make them happy. And I know of quite a few others similar to me."
playswithf1re
In Sync...
Sacha Baron Cohen Thumbs Up GIF by Amazon Prime VideoGiphy"A great plan when both participants are on the same page. Whether that is 'stay FWB' or 'hey we caught feelings, let's give a relationship a try'. A mess when only one participant catches feelings."
Gwywnnydd
Don't get hurt...
"Terrible idea, someone always inevitably develops feelings and gets hurt."
"It can work sure, but in general, unless you're both 100% sure (which, how can you ever really be?) beforehand that you won't develop feelings for each other, I generally have seen it not work."
"In my personal experience, someone always had to break it off just as feelings were starting to arise. So yeah, be careful I guess."
PodcastingPodcastGuy
What have we learned?
Communication is key.
Do you have any WTF FWB experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.