There are certain moments in every bro’s life that he regrets. I’m not talking about the freak accidents where a drunk dude gets his dick caught in the exhaust pipe of his car and has to get it amputated. Those are weird, one in a million sorts of horrible moments that only a select few noble idiots get to live to regret. I’m talking about those moments that just about every one of us can relate to, those moments that we all share at some point in our dumbass past. Regrets? Yeah, we’ve all had a few, but here are nine moments in life that every bro regrets.
Saying No
We’re taught so much to be careful, to say “no” to virtually everything in life that could be the least bit scary, but the truth is that sometimes you just have to say “hell, yes.” Every dude has that moment in their life when they should have said “yes,” but instead went home, maybe watched some shitty TV, jacked it and went to bed while everyone else had the time of their lives. I’m not saying your jerk sessions aren’t transformative experiences, but we’ve all missed way too much in our lives by saying “no.” You know what happens when you say “no.” Nothing. Nothing at all. And that’s no way to live life.
That One Last Drink
We’ve all been there. You’re comfortably drunk, in that stage where everything is hilarious and everyone is awesome and you never, ever want it to end. So what do you do? You have one last drink. And then you spend the rest of the night throwing up and swearing that you’ll never drink again. That girl you were trying to impress gets grossed out, bones down with some other dude and you’re left feeling like you drank from the wrong cup like the dude at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, only worse. It’s like a gambler on a hot streak who presses his luck one too many times.
That Relationship
You know the one I’m talking about. That one. The one that just sucked the life out of you, but you kept going back for more because, uh, well I’m sure you’ll think of a reason some day. Maybe you were convinced it was the real thing. Maybe deep down you thought that she was right all the times she made you feel like shit. Or maybe she just rode you like she was trying to win the Kentucky Derby.
Whatever the reason, you stuck it out because you convinced yourself that it would somehow be worth it. Yeah, it wasn’t. And now you get flashbacks like you were in ‘Nam and wonder how you could have thrown away such a big chunk of the prime of your life. But hey, at least you know the signs now and know when to get out of a shitty relationship before it gets out of hand, right? Right???
That Other Relationship
Ah, and now the flipside. We’ve all had those, uh, dalliances that we wish we never got into in the first place. But we also all have that other one. You know the one. The dreaded one that got away. Sometimes – okay, most of the time – this isn’t even something that became a full-fledged relationship. For whatever reason, it just didn’t work out. Which sucks because, well, you were crazy about her. Or at least you wanted to bone her really, really bad. Same thing, really.
We all regret that moment when it all fell apart, when we realized that it just wasn’t gonna happen. And what’s worse, is that deep down, we tell ourselves that it might still happen. It won’t. And that’s probably what makes it so goddamn annoying. Not only did it die, but we just can’t let it go. It’s the regret that just keeps on taunting us.
Playing It Safe
We’ve all had that moment in our lives when we had to make a decision about who or what we wanted to be. I’m not necessarily talking about a career, although that’s part of it. Really, it’s a succession of a million little choices, some that we don’t even realize we’ve made, that we come to regret.
You start out young, and anything and everything is possible. Then one day you wake up and wonder what the hell happened to you. Of course, this varies. Some dudes are pretty content with who they are, while others wonder how they ended up counting widgets all day and driving a minivan.
But we all have at least one dream, one great, ridiculous thing that we wish we could have done or could have been. Why didn’t it come true? Because we played it safe. Because we were scared of what might happen if we failed. And that sucks.
“I Can Hold It!”
Every single one of you has pissed your pants. Don’t lie. Of course, that pales in comparison to that moment when you tried to let a nice, soothing fart go, probably while hung over, only to get a horrible wet surprise. It’s not something we like to talk about, but we’re all bros here. This is a safe place. A place where we can all admit that we regret the time that we sharted.
Not Being There
It can be something so small as a missed phone call, or as big as getting to the hospital too late to see a loved one for the last time, and everything in between, but we’ve all had at least one moment we regret where we simply weren’t there, either for someone else, or for our own need for closure. It sucks, and the worst part about it is that you can’t do anything to change it. You can’t make it better. You missed it and that’s that.
I’ve missed so many things that I regret. I regret not seeing my grandpa one last time before he died. I regret missing that phone call telling me my best friend’s dad was in the hospital and I should get down there and see him. Hell, I regret stupid shit like not answering my phone and missing a kickass party.
We all have these moments, great and small. And we regret them all.
Listening When Someone Says “Come On, It Will Be Fun!”
No. No, it wasn’t.
Not Wrapping It Up
Look, condoms aren’t any fun, and you might even have the perfect pull-out game. But every dude has had that moment when they decided to roll raw, or the goddamn condom broke, or “Oops, I forgot to take the pill yesterday!” or… you get the picture.
And then, of course, there are those oh so fun trips to the clinic to get some “special” testing done. No one looks back on those fondly.
Of course, some of you out there have some, uh, let’s call them deeper regrets when it comes to this sort of thing. Life altering regrets. The sorts of regrets that wake you up at three in the morning, either because you have to change a diaper or because your piss feels like lava.
But regardless of whether your regrets are of the “Whew! That was a close one!” variety, or the “Oh shit, my life is over” variety, I think it’s safe to say that we all regret not appreciating our little latex friend just a bit more.
Regretful bro image by Shutterstock