Wow. That's huge. Good for you for owning that and making a point of telling them about it. I can't imagine how they felt, being abused like that coming home from a war they probably never wanted to fight in the first place. I'm sure they appreciate what you're doing.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Ouch. That's a tough one.

So what do you do about that, now? I'd imagine it had a pretty profound impact on you, even though you're not to blame for his death.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

That appears to be true for some people. But, I still think, on the whole, it's worth doing. They may actually appreciate it, maybe not immediately, but eventually, and the act of contrition at a minimum requires that you confront and acknowledge your bad behavior. If they accept and appreciate your apology, you've both gained something valuable. If they tell you to fuck off, chances are later they'll at least understand that you value their humanity on some level, which wasn't apparent before, and whether they forgive you sort of doesn't matter much. They get that understanding and you get some sense of relief from the guilt of being an abuser.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

I don’t do much of anything. It’s been 28 years and I think about him frequently. I’ve certainly worked to be better at keeping perceived slights in perspective, especially with friends and family.

hey, I was having a bad day yesterday, not related to this thread. i think my post was a little dick-ish. its not fair to compare one persons problems to another's, because we never know how any one thing can effect a different person. everyone is fighting a battle i know nothing about. I try to remember that, i failed yesterday. sorry.

Apology accepted, but totally unnecessary. That's a good point that I try to remember, and it's become more poignant for me lately, about people fighting their own internal battles that may be evident or completely beneath the surface.

My wife and I decided yesterday to divorce. Well, that's not entirely accurate. I decided we should divorce. She did everything humanly possible to save our marriage, and on the outside it looks like I just didn't care enough to try. It's a long and complicated and heart wrenching story that amounts to us continuing as friends and coparents, as a result of some internal struggles that took me in a direction that is incompatible with marriage to her. It's nearly killed me, or at least felt that way at times, over the last 12 months. I tried every way imaginable to change the way I felt about our relationship, but I kept coming up empty. People looking at our situation from the outside just think, what the hell's the matter with that guy? and no explanation will explain it fully, so I stopped trying and just let people believe about me what they will. So that concept, that everyone has to walk their own path, choose which problems and pain they can live with, and not expect understanding from everyone, or anyone, is stuck in the forefront of my mind lately.

I guess that's why this topic in general came to mind. Making amends, finding peace, increasing the amount of happiness in the world when you've been responsible for someone's unhappiness in the past. It's never too late for that, until it is. Right?

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

I had a very close friend growing up. We did everything together. He had a few girlfriends here and there and we would spend less time together when he did. I understood and certainly never complained.

As for me I was a bit of a late bloomer on that front and didn't start dating until I was 22. I was seriously self conscious back then.

Anyway, I started dating someone and actively tried to keep doing things with him on a regular basis. Apparently it wasn't enough. He told me that we couldn't be friends any more because I had put her first. I was a tremendous asshole, apparently.

Anyway, things didn't work out with her, then later I met the wife.

About 4 years after the "we can't be friends" speech I got an email basically saying "I am over what you did to me and I would like to be friends again" (his wedding was coming up and he didn't have many friends. Probably wanted me in his wedding party.

I responded that I didn't need him back in my life. Probably a dick move in retrospect but I was pissed that he didn't apologize and made it clear that I was still 100% at fault.

That was about 15 years ago. I see him somewhat regularly and we haven't said more than "Hi" since.

I've thought about apologizing for my response but I just don't care enough to.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Eh, I don't think your response was anything to feel bad about. Nothing wrong with deciding to keep your distance, especially given his ongoing view of your role in what happened.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Often ideas of making things right can be fueled a bit by a Messiah Complex. Can we really expect that something we do today might have any meaning to people we knew twenty years ago? They've probably moved on with their lives. Is this for you, or for them?

Who in your life most needs you, and who can you do the most good for? Especially given your action yesterday.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

My hesitation is that if they haven't thought about it then you are putting more crap on them to make you feel better.

I didn't tell the rest of the story though. The topic of being an asshole in high school came up when a group of us got together. I told one of my old friends that I still felt like I had been pretty bad to that guy. My friend was on the baseball team with him and he tells me, "Man, I hated that kid, he was so full of himself and such an asshole. And he couldn't back any of it up." So I wasn't alone in him getting under my skin, but still, making a kid go through the list of farm animal noises just ain't right.

Sorry to hear about the marriage.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Yeah, it's just weird. We were friends basically from the day he was born until we were 22, we're only 3 months apart. Our families were very close, not so much these days.

So mostly I feel bad because I could have patched things up if I wanted to but I wanted to hurt him back more. My response was pretty terse and probably overly harsh.

Anyway, given that he won't say more than hi to me and that he rarely even meets my eye, I would say that it got the response that I wanted. I just don't know if that's really what I would have done if I could it over.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Wow, this thread is heavy...

I feel bad about when we used to go up in the roof of the high school and use a big aluminum bat to ping golf balls deep into the adjacent neighbor hood .

Also feel bad one night we cruising around looking for trouble. Filling ziplock sandwich bags with primer house paint and launching with water ballon launcher.

Blasted the side of an RV parked in camping lot. The next day did a drive by to check scene and saw the oldest couple in the world futiley attemping to squeegee the rig clean. Always thought I should’ve stopped to help clean...