23. Move across the country with $1,000 in your pocket and no job.

[redbrunja]

50 Mistakes Every Woman Should Make

I am looking forward to #4, #28, #33 (so much #33), and also #40.

I already did #35 (can you say 'small claims court'?) and #47.

Comments

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

Of those I've done, they either were uninteresting or terrible, and those I haven't are irrelevant to my understanding of life or else things I'm pretty happy having not done because they're awful ideas and I don't need to try them to know they'd be terrible.

This seems less like a list of mistakes you should make and more a list of mistakes that a lot of people do/will make due to stupidity, ill-luck, or uncontrollable emotional reaction.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

This seems less like a list of mistakes you should make and more a list of mistakes that a lot of people do/will make due to stupidity, ill-luck, or uncontrollable emotional reaction.

Valid point. However, some of these DO seem either fun or education or both, and frankly, I was just talking with a RL friend of my about how we both have some small regrets that we always did the reasonable, responsible thing.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

Ugh, no. I can't say I feel that way. I can't even say I understand that. I never regret doing the smart thing. I don't look back and wonder. I move forward resolved and pleased that I was able to do what was right or responsible without fucking up and I look back with relief.
I don't exactly regret my mistakes, but I wish I hadn't experienced them. They weren't fun. Sometimes I didn't even learn anything except how fucking bad life can hurt. Sometimes there wasn't a point or lesson or good story. Sometimes what I "learned" was contradicted by some other "lesson" from another mistake, leaving me hopeless and bewildered. Sometimes it was just damn awful.

It's one thing learn to deal with nonsense that doesn't matter, like messing up your hair. And it's one thing to be impulsive. Most of the sexual "mistakes" listed on there aren't necessarily mistakes unless you handle them poorly. (Also I can't say I understand those, either. Do "the bass player"? "The wrong twin"? What is this? Pokemon? Do you gotta fuck 'em all?) One can be impulsive sexually without considering those dalliances a mistake. Honestly, to me, calling them so seems insulting. And some of these just seem gross, borderline offensively sexist: skip moisturizer? mess up your hair? watch Downton Abbey? *eyeroll* The commentary is worse, commenting that throwing up while drunk is stigma-free bulimia or that cleavage helps while playing dumb. *SIGH*

But some of these things are not like the others. Some of them have lasting consequences from which it can take years to recover, and those on this list make my toes curl in lingering stomach-churning horror.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

It sounds like we've had a lot of completely different life experiences; and I'm sorry for the ones you've had that were just painful, with no benefit at all.

[mistaria.livejournal.com]

I agree with lykomancer that pretty much all of these sound like mistakes a lot of people do make rather than ones you "should" aim to do.

I can definitely get on board with 33 and 40 though. Although I never go to bars and I definitely don't try to date people I meet in them so it probably won't happen. :p 13 would be amusing.

And I've done 43, 47, and 48

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

13 would definitely get you a good story!

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

okay . . . 14, 33, and 48. Probably will never do #3 due to my extensive collection of multitools and those things always have a corkscrew on 'em. And I want to do #26, when it applies. 37 I'll probably do as soon as I check out Downton Abby.