Slightly less depressing

We talked a little about regret today; specifically the things we do before we know there's a happily ever after in relationships.  I'm very much in the 'all's well that ends well' camp.  I think it's perfectly natural to want to erase all the intimacies you shared with someone else when you finally have the thing you sought all along.  If you end up locking it down with someone, then to me, everything before it was in a sense ordained.  I'm sure a philosophy major would have their way with that false conclusion based on a false or unknowable assumption but arguing with me while ringing up my iced coffee at Starbucks and living a meticulously examined life are about all that degree gets you so have at it.

Some of the things I would hit backspace on were a bad idea when they happened and I was fully aware they were not great ideas before, during, and after execution.  However, I have a larger sack of regrets for things I didn't do or won't do (risk rejection by someone I actually care about, invite attention based on my appearance, fire my language teacher) so at times I pull a card from the stupid-ass-things-to-do deck and do things like date an asshole, sleep with stranger, go to a concert, buy and wear jeggings.  Regrets mostly give me things to talk about with other women in a weird stacking contest we have to gauge just how bad we should feel about something we can't change or just how singularly awful our particular bad decision was compared with our peers.  Pretty standard female bonding stuff.

What I can not fucking stand on any level, in any forum, male or female, is an assurance from someone on the other side of whatever circumstance I'm grieving that everything is going to be okay or a dose of their perspective from the other side about how such-and-such was worth the wait or isn't really that great, or is really hard work in the same way I would say having a kick-ass dog is hard work even though I was really lucky to get one with such a generally agreeable and considerate disposition.  No. one. cares.  It's like trying to tell me how good a movie ends while I'm watching it but it's a movie you've never seen.

If you're rocking happily ever after, you should know your picture has a tiny-print disclaimer footer that says 'Results not typical.'  I don't want to hear how you felt the same way before you won the love lottery or the actual (and pragmatically more useful) lottery.  And I sure as fuck don't want advice on how you think you manufactured your own luck.  I understand knowing 'why' is a large part of being human and where we can't know, we create explanations, but it's just polite to keep the 'how I created with my own two hands and the power of my will a much awesomer life than you' to yourself.  Also not interested in any sentence that starts with, 'I realize now...' unless it is followed by 'I clipped the wrong wire and we should all run now.'  Everyone realizes something now they didn't before.  Unless it is based on something concrete like 'I realize now there is a more direct way to get to work' it's really just a way for you to share with someone something you are proud of with a subtext of 'what you need to do/think is...' and not at all about the circumstance of the person you are sharing with.  We've all done it and I only remember how irritating it is after I get a dose.  Then I think, 'seriously, I have got to NEVER do that to someone again.  This is annoying.'

Then I totally do it again.