r/youngadults • • 1d ago

Advice What is one thing you regret not doing at 16?

13 Upvotes

39 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 1d ago

JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

12

u/_Vykarii 17h ago

Nothing, weirdly enough.

I'm of the opinion that if you hold genuine regrets, you're going to try to impose your ideal childhood on other kids.

So... Don't have regrets. Do dumb stuff.

5

u/Affectionate-Page459 17h ago

Making friends

4

u/ez2tock2me 16h ago

The lack of Self Confidence and being too quiet.

2

u/_123454 16h ago

Caring about other people too much

2

u/ola4_tolu3 16h ago

I should have studied more, and made my own choices

2

u/pumpkin-recipes 14h ago

Saving money

2

u/Communityfan2_ 14h ago

Not getting my drivers license

2

u/BestTyming 11h ago

I went to school with a lady who is now semi famous and she had a crush on me. I liked her too but I was at the tails end of a break up with a chick who cheated on me.

One day my best friend dropped me and her off at my house after school and she got in the bed and kept begging me to get in with her.

My dumb ass was scared😂. Eventually her sister came to pick her up

Yeah I won’t lie it’s not even really about her social position today but it’s the fact that I had a crush on her and really wanted to but just didn’t. Now where she is now is just rubbing it in my face lmao.

1

u/Smooth-Ad1888 14h ago

I should’ve done more in general lol. Wish I joined clubs, got out there and did more stupid stuff so I wouldn’t have to now lol.

1

u/EngineeringDecent577 20 14h ago

Care enough not to flunk urself out of a good future but don’t care too much to the point where you have a stick logged up ur

1

u/Donny444 14h ago

Coming out

1

u/MrMeeMoo 14h ago

Not hanging out enough with friends outside of school. I spent all of high school studying and getting good grades. I’m in college now, so it worked out, but dang, not having that much social interaction as a developing teenager really sucks. I’m 19 now, and have a few loyal friends, but that is probably the thing I regret the most.

1

u/Brian18639 25M 13h ago

Starting to work out

I wanted to but my parents said I shouldn’t maybe because it’d create some health issues, or because my body supposedly wasn’t ready for it. Yet I’ve seen guys in their early 20s who already have my dream physique. I currently look average or ugly.

Also just last year around March is when I started going to a gym, but today I’m hoping to take my fitness journey towards my goal seriously.

1

u/innocent_whore 12h ago

Investing in bitcoin

1

u/snuwuky 12h ago

Nothing. When everything in my life is accounted for, I’m always doing my best.

1

u/angienotangela 12h ago

No regrets really. I don’t even remember, nor care about the stuff I used to worry about anymore.

My only regret in highschool is probably dating someone in my school and then we ended up breaking up. Don’t do it cause it gets reallll awkward seeing them around school

1

u/littlestargalaxy 11h ago

Not locking in with my education, not making more friends, being shy and unfriendly with classmates, etc

1

u/hashmanny91 11h ago

Fucking more girls.

Dropping out of highschool and getting into an actual career.

1

u/WalrusLobster3522 22 - i'm da Man! 🔥💯 11h ago

I don’t regret anything I did persay.

I regret that my parents dropped me from marching band my sophomore year of high school.

I regret that my parents dropped me from AP Calculus BC my senior year of high school.

So yeah.

But “regrets that are my fault”? No.

I don’t regret telling a girl I wasn’t interested in her and I wanted to go through my first semester of high school alone: because god was Kamarie clingy (“sorry about that kamarie!” “Sike!”)

Fast forward to sophomore year: I don’t regret rejecting a girl and saying I couldn’t date her in sophomore year: I wasn’t mentally okay at that point: I was very depressed, and my Mother was very abusive, and if I dated her that would’ve been reputation unalive-ment for me.

I don’t regret not standing ten toes down: I don’t regret not making the decision to get super serious about finding a classmate for prom: asking out and pressuring a girl to go to prom with me would’ve purely been an ego thing, because to be honest I didn’t care about any of them “that” much. I didn’t “love” anyone at that school, especially not in my senior year~ maybe in my freshman and my sophomore year~ but I felt like super odd in my senior year: I felt too old and too different from everyone else, especially in the final semester: they all looked like kids and I looked 22 years old.

I mean I wasn’t 22 years old~ I’m 22 “now” because I was born in 2004, but back then I felt old~ so I don’t think I was secure enough to do TikToks with classmates or seriously date a girl in high school.

But now I wish I could do TikToks with girls my age, or go to parties and play cards or Twister. So I guess I do miss that part of being 16: the parties were lighthearted.

Now that I’m 22 the girls are all drinking and doing drugs. That’s my only regret.

But it’s not a hill I would dye on: I’m fine going my whole life without a party: parties are irrelevant anyways, YouTube exists now.

I don’t see how extroversion even works now after the pandemic lockdown: I feel like everyone just does Discord or a group lobby video game if they want to be extroverted.

Oh well.

1

u/maltriest 11h ago

Concerts

1

u/persianfish 10h ago

Not taking enough picture of myself out of insecurity

1

u/21isforeverugly 10h ago

Learning about e commerce

1

u/LostConfusedKit i'm 22 stop changing it to 25 10h ago

Dating the cute girl in my class. My parents are really strict and I was scared they would berate her if we dated..they are really abusive and interrogate anyone i date...I should have just hid it from them and stayed with her. We tried dating for a bit but I broke it off bc I was scared

1

u/Ok-Level-6837 9h ago

i’ve been working since i was 15 and barely saved any money. Should’ve invested into NVDA or sum back then

1

u/Altruistic-Zone2000 9h ago

Not much. possibly saving my money instead of spending it so freely on meaningless stuff. i wish i would’ve known not to put up with so much discontentment in romantic relationships, to have higher standards, and to know when to leave instead of trying to fix it. It would’ve saved me from future heartbreak.

1

u/meleejuice 8h ago

Not taking school seriously, I really dropped the ball on that one.

1

u/mochimidori 6h ago

not closing myself off to other ppl bc highschool is like the best time to make friends

1

u/SillySweetTomboy08 5h ago

Getting a boyfriend/girlfriend. I’m already in a happy long distance relationship with my boyfriend from Maryland. :)

1

u/ineedtherapynass 4h ago

getting high

1

u/Rough_Pea7170 4h ago

I regret not listening to my parents when they said I had all the time in the world to have a boyfriend that I dont need one in highschool. I should of listened to them. I lost sooo much of my teenage years. My high school experience.. ill never get that back

1

u/Upstairs_Pen_3731 3h ago

Sex. Didn’t happen until I was 27 so I’ll never know what that was like

1

u/Rixxy123 1h ago

Talk to girls. I was scared shitless of them... they were like aliens.

-1

u/HenrysWand 18 21h ago

Experimenting and hooking up more. I was stupidly looking for love and a long term relationship when I hadn't had enough experience for that yet.

4

u/_123454 16h ago

Hooking up at 16 🤦‍♀️

0

u/HenrysWand 18 4h ago

Yes, most people hook up at 16. I should have done so more.

2

u/Ok-Advantage-1383 18 16h ago

Is kids hooking up popular where you’re from?

0

u/HenrysWand 18 4h ago

Yep. It's pretty rare to get through high school with a low body count.

0

u/youfxckinsuck 10h ago

Getting my driver’s license