I’m curious, what do you look back at now, with a great sigh of relief?
This post may include affiliate links.
My life is one giant mutating bullet trying to hit me and I'm moving like Neo in The Matrix.
One of my ex-boyfriends was emotionally abusive. He had almost succeeded in separating me from my family and friends when it was time for me to study overseas. A week or two before I was supposed to leave, my eyes opened and I realized how much he had manipulated my thinking (youth and great s*x can shut down a person's reasoning skills), so I started pulling away. At the airport, surrounded by friends and family, he kept trying to get me to step away with him. He tried to give me his necklace but I just kept thinking 'if I take this, he'll always have a way to get to me' so I told him it would be better if he kept it. After I got on the plane, we flew to our layover destination and then on to London. What I didn't know at the time is that he went out, got in his car, and drove like a bat out of H*ll to get from Indianapolis to St. Louis to try to meet my connecting flight as some kind of grand romantic gesture. Thankfully he missed my flight by 20 minutes and I didn't have to deal with his drama or emotional abuse anymore!
It happened like, 4 years ago. I had a crush on a boy, and flirted with him a bit. For the first time in my life, it worked, we spoke a little, and i left with his number. We were sending each other messages everyday, but because of my studies and his job, the only place we could meet was at his workplace. For 15 min. We were more and more close, but still not in a romantic relationship. Then, red flags. He already has a girlfriend, but wanted me too because "you're pretty and funny in a different way ". I refused. He then asked me a lot of personal questions about s*x. Everything you could imagine. Even asked for s*xy photos. WTF dude. And then, everydays, he tried to convince me to meet at 9.30- pm in a forest where nobody goes past 8pm.I blocked him, but kept every message,because you never know. I may be wrong and don't want to check, but i think i could have been r*ped if i had been there. A cold forest, alone with him. And maybe his best friend, who bullied me when I was 12.
I was with someone for a while and didn't dodge the whole bullet as found out he was a serial cheater. I gradually started noticing how many of his friends and coworkers had children that looked uncannily alike. Guess who they all looked like? I'm so glad I didn't further those genes.
My Dr got tired of me trying to put off my partial hysterectomy so we finally scheduled it for 12/4/2019. Found cancer on my uterus but no where else......bullet dodged. Also didn't have to recover while dealing with covid protocol about the hospital visitation and such. So two bullets, one surgery.
I’ll start: A few years back, I was at a job interview, very nice place, VERY nice salary! But the boss kept going on about how happy all his employees were, now he had bought a huge fridge, so the didn’t need to go home to eat for any meal.. That was a red flag for me..
About a year later, the company made headlines, going to court for dodgy/illeagal means, and found guily of illeagal surveillance of workes private emails, using private detectives and gathering information about workes as well as business rivalries health issues.
Dodged that bullet!
So at my high school, there is a course called Independent Research. This course teaches you how to research, pick sources, evaluate sources, synthesize and write research essays, all while you research a topic of your choice in real time. Really helpful course, if you have something similar at your high school I very much recommend it.
Anyway, part of the process is finding an expert on your topic and reaching out to them before eventually and hopefully interviewing them. For my topic, I found a person and read up some of their works and really thought it was a match for my topic. I was just about to send out an email to them when I randomly Googled their name to find out that they had just recently been fired from the institute they worked at for making racist remarks.
Dodged a bullet!
My husband and I met with the owner of a duplex we were interested in renting.
He was a very short man with a big dog attitude.
He mentioned, a few times, about the little old lady that lived there before the current renter.
After meeting with him a few more times, he sent my husband a text that said he decided not to rent to us.
I told my husband that he is the reason he won't rent to us, because the owner knows that he can't bully him.
Found out later that we know knew a former tenant who said he is a terrible landlord, he would rearrange his outdoor furniture and decorations. He also suspected that he had been inside without 24 hours notice, which is illegal in our state.
We were very glad that we didn't get the place.
Drove by it a few times and guess who lives there.....a little old lady.
Realized after 10 years (married at 25), that while I was being financially responsible and carrying my spouses butt, that he was never going to grow up. We divorced. I got my IRAs and personal possessions. He got the house(we never would have had it if his parents hadn't passed. It was fair). About 6 years later, I saw the foreclosure notice in the paper. Now. He's 64, living with a pal. I'm 58, retired, married to someone that shares my values and didn't whiff a house that was easily affordable up his nose. Ffff, bullet whizzes by. Not gloating. It just was not my end goal. I'm sure he never saw his fate was directly related to his lifestyle.
When I was 20 and a fairly new driver (started at 19) I was driving on a busy freeway and got distracted dropping something on the floor. As I was reaching for it I then looked up and thought I was about to hit a car next to me. I started swerving and lost control of the car as it started swerving and jumping between 2-3 lanes. I slammed on my brakes and the car screeched to a stop as it turned completely around and faced traffic. Everyone behind me stopped. I looked up and stared at 3 lanes of stopped traffic and a person in the front gestured for me to start my car and get going. So I did! I couldn’t believe I didn’t hit anyone or anything and it seemed like no one else did either. I continued on my way shaking and laughing and crying at my good fortune. I just prayed no one had gotten into an accident further behind me because of it.
I once accidently stepped on a tooth pick,the toothpick went into my dead skin(disclaimer,I still got hurt cuz I didn't know it was there and I stabbed my other foot with it so it went in and then I did it with my other foot to get it off)(I am fine)
I accidently hit the button... This girl I was fooling around with in highschool got pregnant by some loser the year after I graduated. It was funny cause she started calling me again being all like 'I miss you blah blah blah' not knowing my best friend, who lived across the street from me, told me about it already.
Had a friend since Kindergarten (we both live in a small town). Let’s call her Casey
Met a boy in 5th grade who I became besties with who we’ll call Kyle
So Casey, for whatever reason at that time, didn’t like Kyle. Ngl looking back she was probably jealous of the time I was spending with him and not her. One night me and Casey are arguing over text and she demands an apology from me so I apologize about anything I could think of. First red flag, but me being dumb I would eventually make up with her and be friends again.
It was rocky in 6th grade but nothing terrible, but I could tell she just despised Kyle for some reason.
7th grade is when I believe I learned that Kyle has ADHD and that Casey had been bullying him. So I stick up for him and Casey starts bullying me too :(
But me and Kyle remain friends and he told me more shot she did like swearing at him and yelling racial slurs and insults at him (Kyle is German and Chinese and his Asian genetics shine through)
8th grade I moved to a different school
Haven’t talked to Casey since (but I heard that she actually got bullied really badly in 8th grade. Karma’s a B!)
Bullet dodged