If there’s one thing I learned reading these stories, it’s how easily my own life could have gone another way. We should all be very grateful.
This piece is based on an AskReddit thread. Link on the last page.
1/20. I knew this dumbwit dude, who was keeping an old girlfriend on the line, stringing her along. Buddy went to a porn convention,
-USS_Meg
2/20. He met a girl at a party on Friday. He put in his resignation at work and sent an email to his advisor he was giving up his grad program on Saturday. He moved across the continent with the girl he met on Monday morning.
Last time I heard about him, his friends were collecting money to fly his homeless ass home two years later and he’s been jobless and crashing on people’s couches ever since.
-eggplantlasagna
3/20. He fell madly in love with a girl and would do anything she asked. She told him he should go rob a store so she could have some cash, so he went into a dry cleaner’s with a hairbrush under a towel (so it looked like he had a gun). He was caught and served 7 years in the state prison.
It was his first time ever getting in trouble with the law (I wanted to say it was his first brush with the law, but that’s not even funny in this case). Once he was released from prison, he was unable to get a job, and eventually became an alcoholic.
-ExHokie
4/20. Apparently it’s a very serious offence to steal a mail truck.
-LordOfOstrich
5/20. I had a friend who was severely bullied in high school. He was always taunted, insulted, assaulted both physically and mentally, mugged on a daily basis, and nearly had his neck broken. The school wouldn’t do anything to these degenerates (the school wasn’t in a bad part of town but it hard some really troubled kids).
One day the worst bully of all decided to ruin my friend’s day for good by trying to break his knees with a bat. (continued…)
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As my friend goes up to bat he gets ready to the hit ball, and the bully comes up behind him and prepares to swing a bat at his knees. The pitcher threw it too far inside, and forced my friend to duck. That saved him from the bat the bully was swinging from behind. But my friend had had enough.
He turned around and takes the an MLB-level swing that connected with the bullys skull. He dropped dead where he stood.
Suddenly the coaches were tackling my friend to the ground and calling the police. My friend was arrested and charged for murder. To this day I don’t know if he’s alive or dead.
All I know is that if the joke of a school system would have done something about the bullying, he wouldn’t have felt the need to stand up for himself. It’s complete bull that the very people who preach about how they support anti-bully measures are the same ones who stand by and do nothing until something tragic happens.
Gary was a nice guy who would help anyone in need. He helped carry me to the nurse when my own group of bullies blinded me with sand and dirt when they tripped me. To hell with the school system and the people who act like he’s the criminal when he had to deal with four years of torture.
-Ethelynediamine
6/20. Oh god, my mom’s cousin and his whole family are selling this multi-level marketing herbal crap and have been for 3 years now, trying to get rich. He had a great stable job, lived in a nice suburb. Now his oldest kid dropped out of undergrad to work selling herbal crap, his wife is on it too, and his youngest son graduated from HS and started selling right away…
They had to move cause they couldnt afford the mortgage anymore. Its so sad idk how they’re still in that world. They used to be so much fun at get togethers and family events, now they always try to talk everyone into buying from them and are super obsessed about getting rich, like it’ll happen anytime now!
-osopolar0722
7/20. A guy at work lost his boyfriend. They were together for like 12 years. We raised tens of thousands within the company towards the cancer charity that supported him for months and the family while raising awareness. But that’s not the messed up part. (continued…)
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Last week he got caught stealing cash from work. Everyone is distraught. He’s lost his job and all his friends.
The worst part: he got life insurance money, and still collects his dead partner’s pension. We’re based in the UK so there were no medical bills, and they didn’t have a mortgage.
He didn’t even need the money.
-VeryLazyLewis
8/20. Knew a dude in university. He was top of every class, really nice dude and on track to be an insanely successful doctor. He had a girlfriend who was an honest to god model. His girlfriend got into cocaine (because apparently it’s fairly common for models). She offered him some one day and the last I heard he was working in a fish market and in and out of rehab and AA. Still with the same girl though so that’s nice?
-Salieris_Silence
9/20. World of Warcraft. It’s pretty obvious now that he has major addictive personality, since he basically shrugged off everything to smoke weed and play video games, then just blamed everyone else for trying to stop him. Last time I heard from him he was living on a boat in the harbor but it got wrecked on the jetty.
-Damnyoureyes
10/20. This coworker with no adult life experience became obsessed with everything Disney. She maxed out all credit cards on merchandise and trips to the parks. When she exhausted all of her credit, she used her mother and her brother’s.
Now she’s stuck at 33, living in a relative’s basement (for free) and spending virtually every dollar on multiple Disney trips and cruises per year. Her credit rating is shot and she’s hundreds of thousands in debt.
I truly wish I was kidding. She’s lost everything and recently announced at work that she no longer wants children. Obviously this is because kids would interfere with her ability to do more and more Disney stuff.
It’s like someone who joins a cult and becomes a different person.
-Alltruenews
11/20. I dated a super-smart girl in high school. She wanted to be an astronaut. She won the national science fair for a project to terraform Mars. She was accepted to the Air Force academy to train to be a pilot / scientist so she could be fast-tracked to the astronaut cadet program. The girl was brilliant.
Six months before graduation in senior year she went to a party. (continued…)
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She took some bad ecstasy and went into a coma for a few weeks. When she came out, she was a totally different person.
She just lost all her drive and basically stopped going to class or doing any work. She failed her last semester and dropped out. She cut everyone off and went into seclusion. That’s the last I heard of her.
-mostlyemptyspace
12/20. In high school we went streaking, and one of my friends happened to be 18. We got caught by the police, and now he is on the sex offenders list. That was 6 years ago.
-TrekkingTrogdor
13/20. A relative of mine was worth about $5 mil at one point. He developed a gambling habit. A couple of years later, he ended a 30-year friendship by passing a bad check for $60 because he had to make one last bet.
-toml3030
14/20. Friend of mine spent his entire childhood playing in the minor hockey leagues. He got so good he was nearly at the top of the league by the time he was in high school. Then his mom died of cancer and he started drinking. All his teammates went on to play in the NHL, and he’s working as a roofer.
It’s sad watching hockey with him, and he’s like, “I used to play with that guy in Triple-A.” His mom’s dream was to see him go all the way to the top.
-Thudly
15/20. Most gorgeous, intelligent girl I’ve ever know. She was pre-med in college and breezing through.
Then she got an offer to make $1000 in a weekend as a model at a car show. Then she got offered much more than that to model lingerie for a bunch of sales reps the night after the car show. She made $2500 that night. I think that changed her perspective on life. (continued…)
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She dropped out of school “for one semester” with the plan of making enough money in four months to pay the rest of her way through college. She made a ton of money as a stripper.
Then she discovered cocaine and spent all that stripper money as fast as she could make it. Claims she was “tricked” into making a porn movie but was so high she’s not sure if it was commercial porn or just some guys making a home movie.
Then she got pregnant, not sure who the father is. While pregnant and high, she got arrested driving the getaway car for a couple of guys who tried to rob the strip club she worked at.
In THREE MONTHS she went from top of the world to being a felon, waiting to have a prison baby. So sad.
-bluecheetohs
16/20. Had a friend who bought an expensive Mercedes. It was kind of a life dream he had for many years. It took all his savings and also his life insurance to get there, plus a decent credit.
When pulling off the dealer’s place, he totally wrecked it on the first turn. Paperwork with insurance was still in progress, so they denied paying. He now drives a used old car and is paying off a credit for a car he drove less than a minute.
-WeSaidMeh
17/20. Not a friend, my only brother. Golden boy, handed everything on a silver platter. Basically a Prince in our family, golf scholarship, lots of friends, chicks throwing themselves at him. All this despite the fact that he’s a supreme jerk, and a nasty person.
He started drinking heavily at 15. Seriously cheap disgusting stuff too – which is nonsense, we come from money. (Buy some good stuff and stop chain smoking menthols but whatever.) He hid it like a champ until 2015. (continued…)
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He suffered full liver failure a week after his 29th birthday. So he begs my parents for a 2nd chance at life, he needs help, he wants to live. My parents managed to get him a full liver transplant two months in which would have been impossible without money because addicts aren’t really high on the list for transplants.
Once it was done, he had mandatory rehab, 12 steps etc. The Mayo Clinic started calling because he was skipping his mandatory “how are you enjoying the organ you don’t deserve?” appointments.
When my mom forces him to go, he tests positive for coke, booze & weed. He is now dead to me & most of my family. He has four years or less to live & my mom is basically a slave because he cries that he needs her & she’s too weak to toss him in a home.
That liver could have gone to 8 people who maybe cared about their life. In my mind, he is a murderer who straight up stole someone else’s second chance at life.
-Queenie84
18/20. He had a bad temper. He quit a really good commission sales job because they weren’t going to give out more vacation time. He then took a $7.50 an hour job at a pizza place. He ended up losing his house.
-Ohsoeasy
19/20. A guy I knew in college was dragging his feet about breaking up with a girl. He went over to her house to finally end their toxic relationship, but ended up sleeping with her again instead.
And, naturally, she got pregnant.
-mug6688
20/20. My buddy’s wife (both were my friends) got herself a “work husband”, she being in her early 20s and him being 43 and an ugly creep. She has her husbands baby and files for divorce a month later, citing abuse. (There was no abuse.)
Moves in with work husband and tries unsuccessfully to take all her hubbys money and keep him from his kid. His lawyer is way more competent and she ends up with credit card bills and 50/50. She’s dead broke and her 43 year old boyfriend works retail at a big box store.
-Emilylime27