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Regrets, we all have them! Some nudge us when we’re lying in bed in the middle of the night. Some try to smother us all the hours we’re awake. This week, in another Bad Behavior Issue A+ roundtable, we asked our team: What is something you did to someone you love that you wish you could take back?

Heather Hogan, Senior Editor

Right after I came out I got into a few romantic relationships in which I really, really broke the hearts of the women I dated. I never went into it planning to be a monster, and I think that actually always made it worse. I am really nice. Not as a game or some kind of fake Sunday School bullshit. I am legitimately a very caring, very kind person. And I did care about these women! Very much! One of them, I can honestly say, saved my life in later years and is as dear to me as anyone on earth.

I wanted to be a good girlfriend! That was always my intention in the beginning anyway. But I made promises I couldn’t keep, sweeping gestures of adoration followed by weeks or months of silence, declarations of affection that implied commitments I wasn’t willing or able to follow through on. And then, out of nowhere and with no regard for their feelings at all, I’d break up with them. I was really fucked up at the time. I was in some toxic situations with family and friends. I was only just learning how growing up with an abusive mother had rattled my brain in a forever kind of way. I was scared all the time but also just super selfish. I didn’t talk about what was going on inside my brain or heart or allow anyone a chance to rebut the cases I was making against them in the courtroom of my own mind. I made unilateral decisions for everyone involved with me and shrugged when they protested. (This is, to be honest, still something I struggle with: not talking about how I feel and then just making a huge decision that seems to everyone else like it came out of nowhere because I never mentioned it and dealt with it all in my own brain.)

I will never forget this one time I broke up with a very lovely girl (again, out of nowhere) (oh, and on New Year’s Eve) (oh, and over G-chat), and she said, “But… you were so sweet to me.”

And, reader, I was sweet to her. I was sweet to every girl I dated. Until I wasn’t. I’d like to time travel back to my late 20s and slap myself in the face, on behalf of every girl who fell for me before I grew the fuck up.

Also, in high school, I got a lot of attention because I was a talented athlete and to keep that attention directed at me, but not too closely (because I didn’t need anyone looking at me hard enough to figure out I’m gay), I made jokes at the expense of other people. Like a lot of jokes. It was half my personality. One time, in front of the whole school, I did this bit that made everyone just laugh and laugh but it hurt my sister’s feelings so badly — and probably to this day still hurts her when she thinks about it. All the worst parts of my teenage self were unleashed in that moment. I was like a human Dementor! I’m too ashamed, even now, to tell you what I said, and I wouldn’t want my sister to have to relive it. I will never forgive myself for it, though. I’ll tell you that much. Ever.

Mary Oliver says I don’t have to walk on my knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting — but I think she might be wrong about this one thing.

Al(aina), Staff Writer

An ex and I lived together after we broke up far longer than we should’ve, and we physically fought. It was awful. They shoved me into a door and I shoved them back with way more force and it was as bad as it sounds. I remember being so shocked after it happened, and emotionally hurt, because I still loved them (and still do), and realized that we were in such an unsafe and unhealthy place that this was the only way we could talk to each other. I moved out, and our relationship is 100% better. I never apologized though, and really wish I had.

Alexis, Staff Writer

Making my best friend cry. There was a really weird terrible time senior year for me, where instead of like trusting that people actually liked me and that maybe we could let our friendship continue past high school, I was super intent of destroying as many relationships as possible so it’d like hurt less when they inevitably ended (full disclosure: I also planned on committing suicide by the end of high school so that also played a huge factor here). I can’t even remember why I stopped talking to her, I know I hadn’t fully come out which probably played a part in it but also I believed that people who loved you automatically needed to be your therapists? Which thank God I know that’s not true now, but undiagnosed super fucked up high school me did not and that added to this terrible time. I stopped talking to her and just like hung out other places and got really wrapped up in my own sadness and shit. I think part of me knew that I’d try to trick myself into believing it never happened, so in a lot of my journals there are all these quotes (like, “My feelings haven’t changed. Not like yours.”) she said to me when we were trying to fix what I broke, which like make it super obvious that I was in the wrong for a long time.

Erin, Staff Writer

A couple years into my grandmother being in a nursing home for Alzheimer’s I stopped going as much because it scared me to see her in her condition. It was enough of a shift in frequency that my mom commented on it, which later made me think that maybe my grandmother noticed it, too, in her moments of cognizance. I was a teenager and clearly not super experienced in dealing with that kind of loss, but it’s still upsetting to think there was ever a moment where she felt more alone because of it. I’d take that back.

Creatrix Tiara, Staff Writer

Late last year I confronted one of my best friends about serious allegations that he’d been predatory and creepy towards other women, especially younger women. I also came forward as having received such news, and offered my ear to anyone who wanted to talk — a few people did.

The entire process was a nightmare. He ended up being super hostile and gaslighty. He thought I was solely interested in ruining his reputation and didn’t listen to a word I said. 6 months of this push-and-pull later, I cut him off for good.

I wouldn’t take back the confrontation itself; it needed to happen. But I keep feeling like I could have been more elegant about it. Maybe not call him at 8am in a panic, maybe I should have set up a very specific meeting instead. Maybe don’t say semi-publicly that I knew, maybe be much much more subtle about it. Maybe then he’d listen, maybe then there would be some justice or restitution, maybe then no heartbreak.

Molly Priddy, Staff Writer

You know how you have these ideas of what you’d do if your person ever left you? Like, how dramatic you’d be and how vindicated you’d feel in such actions? Well, when my now-ex-wife decided things were over between us and there wasn’t a thing I could do to change her mind, I unloaded a few choice insults that I knew would hurt because I knew her so well, and I regret that, even if she might have deserved it. It felt bad to me, and I know it felt bad to her. ALSO as I was walking out in a panic I suddenly felt like my ring was strangling me so I pulled it off my ring finger and threw it behind me, over my shoulder, in her direction, and I heard a, *click* of impact and immediately turned around and somehow it had hit her right in the tooth. It was wild, even though I was completely and utterly enraged and hurt and wild-eyed, I calmed down enough to kneel in front of her and check out her mouth to see if I’d actually hurt anything and apologized profusely, and she was trying to tell me she was totally fine and she knew I didn’t mean to actually throw something at her and all of it really deflated my big exit.

Rachel, Managing Editor

The first girl I was ever in love with I had known since I was eight; she had freckles and her birthday is the day after mine and we could walk to each others’ houses. In high school, she would give me a ride to school every day and held my hand when I had to go to the nurse because I was sick. I had a boyfriend, but that didn’t stop us from napping together for hours with our arms wrapped around each other in her bed; she was religious, but that didn’t stop her from writing a note that said she loved me (in orange colored pencil) and slipping it into my locker one day.

She should have been my first girlfriend, and in some ways if we’re being honest she was, but at the end of the day I was too scared. I never responded to her note and we pretended it didn’t happen; I didn’t kiss her in her bed even though I thought about her lips constantly; I went to prom with her (??!!) but pretended we were only slow dancing together to avoid a boy who liked me. All she was waiting for was for me to meet her halfway and admit what was happening, and I wouldn’t. We stayed in touch after high school, and only acknowledged what we had obviously been doing in occasional fake-casual asides, acting light and offhand about it — but I could tell by her tone how hurt and angry she had been, and still was in some ways. I was too terrified of how I felt about her and what it would mean to acknowledge it, and so instead I left her hanging; I’m always going to feel like I abandoned her, and I think she will too.

The last time I heard from her was in 2014; she was by then in a real relationship with a girl who also wasn’t out yet when they met, but who, unlike me, came to terms with it, got her shit together, came out and dated her openly. I was by then with a dude that we both knew wasn’t right for me, but was easy. She emailed to say she had had a dream about me and was thinking about me; reading it made me feel so overwhelmed and fucked up that I closed the window and never responded because I didn’t know how — which, you know, of course I did, because I’m a fucking asshole. I was just a kid when I first knew her; by 2014 I was in my mid-twenties, and there’s no excuse. I’ve thought about it and her since then, and probably always will, while also hating myself and wishing I could have done it all differently.

Archie, Comic Artist

I’ve done a lot of thoughtless and careless things to partners. I’ve admittedly been a bad partner more than once. And I feel bad about it, but it doesn’t even compare to how guilty and awful I feel when I let my friends down. My pals are so important to me. I try to treat them as long-term romances. I think a time that I go back to in my head over and over is a time I abandoned my friend at the bar to go fool around with a stranger in the bathroom. Don’t get me wrong: I love cruising and my pals support and love me and partake in it themselves. But also, I think there needs to be clear communication with the folks you’re going out with about intentions and expectations! Everyone is an adult and can take care of themselves, but also I learned it can feel really shitty to go out one-on-one with someone and then have them go missing.

So my best pal and I went out on a friend-date with each other, expectations and intentions set! We spent the whole evening together, having honestly a great time and just enjoying each others company. But then I got drunk, found a stranger to make out with, and then abandoned my pal to fuck around in the club bathroom. My friend waited until after bar close and when I didn’t re-appear, left. When I finally exited to an empty bar, I called myself a cab and called my friend back. I apologized and they weren’t even angry-they were glad I was getting home safe and reminded me that if I was going to go off on my own to let them know so they can bring a friend or a backup plan. BASELINE, they weren’t nearly as disappointed in me as I was in me! I didn’t feel bad for hooking-up, but I felt TERRIBLE I just left them! alone! on our fun night out! This doesn’t even sound like a big deal as I type it out, but I regret!

Laneia, Executive Editor

Well I’m sure this will come as a huge surprise to you, but I carry guilt and regret around with me about nearly every interaction with my family?!! I’m convinced I’ve ruined my children for this and that reason; there are too many to even catalogue but the main one is the years I lost to depression ?. I’m not an attentive enough daughter or sister. My dad’s mom is sitting in her tiny house in Tennessee and I can’t seem to make it over to visit her when I’m there. I didn’t go to my grandfather’s funeral. I lost the antique diamond and sapphire ring my grandmother gave me when I turned 13. I didn’t go home to see my dad before he died!!!! Just recently, I lost all patience and replied to a text from my aunt in a way that was frankly quite rude and a little mean, and I wanted to apologize the next day but didn’t, and that was weeks ago. Did I mention what a terrible, absent sister I am? And how I lost touch with all of the older people on my mom’s side of the family after my grandmother died, even though I didn’t want to! OK!

I wish I could take everything back and I wish I would apologize for things I can still apologize for, and I wish I’d stop doing or not doing the things that I know I’ll regret. This is more than I’ve even told a therapist. Wheee!

Valerie Anne, Staff Writer

I wish I took my brother with me when I left.

This answer is complicated, because my first impulse was to say I wish I never left him at all, but that’s not quite right, because I wouldn’t have survived another year if I hadn’t left for New York for college when I did. But in my desperation to escape my toxic relationship with my mother, I never considered the sibling I was leaving behind. In my defense, when I was there, she doted on him. Everything was my fault, my responsibility. He was blameless, he was perfect. Once when he was two, he got his hands on a Sharpie, opened it, and dragged a thick, black line along the wall in the living room, across the kitchen cabinets, down the hall, and into the bathroom. When we discovered it, my mom started screaming at me, asking me why I wasn’t watching my brother, how I could have let this happen. I was six.

So I didn’t think about my brother when I left. I thought the tumultuous atmosphere of our childhood was my fault, I thought I was the trigger for my mother’s rage, I thought I was the reason my house was a minefield. I never considered that when I was gone, the rage would still be there, but without its usual focus. I didn’t consider that without me there to absorb the blast, my brother, her precious son, her favorite child, would start being the target of weapons he had no way to protect himself from, because he never had to build armor to wear, or forge weapons of his own with which to defend himself. I was his shield, just by existing, for all his fourteen years and I just… left.

Every text I got about her when I was in college broke my heart. How could I be so selfish? How could I be so FOOLISH? Of course her irrational anger and outbursts didn’t just go away when I did. Just because he was old enough now that he didn’t need me to make his dinner when she was holed up in her office and my dad was working late, just because he didn’t need me to help him beat the Tony Hawk Pro Skater levels, just because he didn’t need me to reach the VCR for him anymore didn’t mean he didn’t still need me.

I don’t know if he blames me for leaving. If he did, I don’t know if he’s forgiven me by now. This isn’t the kind of thing we talk about. I know he doesn’t hate me for it, not in a full-stop kind of way, because we do still talk about the things we’ve always talked about — scary movies and 90s alt music, mostly — and we’re becoming friends in the way siblings do after becoming adults. He was always bolder than I was, and I think he was better at standing up to her than I’ll ever be. So maybe he’s fine, maybe he doesn’t think about it at all, the fact that I left him. But I think about it all the time.

Alyssa Andrews, Comic Artist

When I was 19 years old, I fell in the loveliest of loves with my first serious boyfriend. He was handsome and sweet, impossibly good to me, and we liked and loved all of the same things. When I was 20 years old, I fell in the most unlovely of first queer loves with a friend who we’ll call Leah — while still dating my boyfriend. The story is basically right out of a teen lesbian drama. Leah and I fucked on a Sunday while he was out of town and I dumped him on the Monday that he got back because I felt very guilty (but you know — never owned up to the Leah bit of things). In the aftermath, Leah outed me to all of our friends in a very dramatic and public panic about how she wasn’t a dyke days later and welp — here we are.

Regardless of my trying to figure things out — he didn’t deserve to be strung along for it. He treated me with dignity and respect, and I owed him a conversation, not a betrayal. I’d take it back and do things right any day of the dang week.

Cameron, Comic Artist

I fell asleep on a Skype call that we were specifically having to try to fix our crumbling long-distance relationship. To be fair, I had a heavy course-load that semester, I hadn’t slept in three days, and we were always Skyping on their schedule. But I made them feel like they didn’t matter and that’s not something I ever wanted to do. We ended up breaking up over text shortly after, which was just a nice rotten cherry on top.

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