People Confess Which Things In Life Have Disappointed Them Beyond Words

Poor Friendships

"Probably unpopular, but personally true for me: friendship."

"Growing up, my group of friends was pretty toxic. After high school, we naturally went our separate ways, but there was a bit of an emotional scar."

"In college, I found a new group of friends… who actually ended up being even worse and almost ruined my life. It has left me with such severe trust issues that I struggle to form meaningful friendships now."

- WaterFlew

"I had a friend from high school that I thought would be with me for life. I had never had a closer friend ever in my life, and part way through college, it blew up in my face. She turned on me, and all communication broke down."

"Losing someone I considered close enough to be family was gut-wrenching. I have trust issues now because how can someone you loved like a family member be so cruel in the end? I lost ties to all but one friend over the years."

"People would come into my life and we’d connect deeply and it always ended. Not as bad as my best friend had but still nothing ever sticks. People would end up with differing views on life or just get busy. Now I rely on family and my husband for friendship. These are the people who stick with me through the years."

- Increasingly_Anxious

"I've been posting about this lately: my former best friend and neighbor. He's a single dad of two special needs kids. I did a lot to help him out much of last year."

"Late last fall, he either broke into my house (or had someone else do it for him) and stole quite a bit of money from me. When I confronted him about this, he physically attacked me."

"After everything I did for him, it hurts so bad someone could simply turn on you. The beatdown he gave me didn't make me cry, I took it, but later on, when I realized our friendship was a sham and he was only using me, I completely broke down."

- llcucf80

Start Saving Up When You're Five

"House prices. I really should have been buying up real estate in grade school, lol (laughing out loud)."

- astickyworm1

"2000s Adults: Oh no, the economy!"

"2007: Oh no, the economy again!"

"Not one f**king adult acknowledged the growth that took place. Meanwhile today…"

"2016 - 2023: The housing market will crash any day now…"

- Hurrington

Older Isn't Always Better

"I realized in my 20s that 'older' people were just as immature and dishonorable as kids, only permanently so."

"Very scary moment. You grow up looking up to those people, and when the pedestal you put them on falls, you are looking down on them, still powerless to change the world."

- litetravelr

"As a kid, I gave the adults in my life a lot of passes for their behavior. I figured I was a kid, and they acted that way for reasons I was just too young to understand."

"Now that I’m in a similar age range as they were when they hurt me, I realize they’re just s**t people who choose to be this way."

- whirlyworlds

The Lack of Agency Was Stifling

"Childhood."

"People kept telling me it was the best time of my life and that adulthood was a misery of obligations and responsibilities."

"Well, my experience of being an adult and able to have much more control over my own life, who I associate with, and what I do with my time is a welcome exchange for my responsibility-free life where I had comparatively little agency."

- zazzlekdazzle

"Oh boy, do I agree with this one zillion percent. I HATED being a kid. You are at the absolute mercy of the people around you."

"I can’t count the number of jobs I’ve quit or the people I’ve kept out of or cut out of my life. I have a boring, mediocre life. It’s still better than being a kid."

- GreatFortune5630

Rose-Colored Glasses

"Love."

- Hot_Wine_2004

"I dreamed of my wedding day and having kids and living happily ever after. I didn't dream about him cheating and leaving me three weeks after our son was born... A**hole."

- tryingtofitin_d**mit

"I almost always never get the love I give."

"Sometimes it's fine, but when it becomes routine, life just gets depressing."

"Still doesn't stop me from being kind. You never know what the other person is going through."

- HydroVector

The Lull After College

"How f**king awful life after college is. In college, you're always learning new things and meeting new people. You have a lot of fun and friends and, sure, you work a s**t job that pays squat and you have to study all the time, but you have this sense of accomplishment all the time and you have goals in front of you."

"Once you graduate, everyone moves to different cities. You get different jobs. It’s way harder to make friends and time seems to go by at light speed."

"Additionally, any third space you want to hang out in costs a ton of money, and no one wants to actually talk and become friends. If I’d known life got this lonely and boring, I’d have tried to savor every moment of college."

- fatboyfall420

"Chr**t, I’m going through the same thing. It feels like the months pass by in seconds. My friends all have relationships and are moving away."

"Trying desperately to be friends with people at work and other places yet nobody wants to be?? I won’t even mention trying to get into a romantic relationship."

"Hopefully joining clubs and taking up hobbies with people my age would enjoy will bring me closer to making friends. Oh, and vacations. Lots and lots of vacations."

- AudioIsland

Shocking Siblings

"My siblings. Never expected them to turn on me and then try to prevent me from getting my share of the inheritance."

- California_Sun1112

"My aunt did that to my dad. He can't bring himself to talk to her anymore. It was less about the money and more about the fact that she pulled that stunt."

- Lokeze

'Murica

"The American government, hands down."

- NoMournersNoFunerals

"Not so much the American government but society as a whole."

"The American government has actually worked out pretty well for me (my family came to the USA as refugees, my parents worked minimum wage jobs, I got a college degree and I'm making well above the median household income), but as I've grown older I've just grown disgusted with how stupid and easily manipulated people are."

"The pandemic was a fine example, like, I may not morally agree with someone doing evil s**t for personal gain but at least that makes sense. Doing stupid s**t to make their lives worse is a level of stupidity that the logical side of me can't handle."

- Zerole00

Using Resources for Good

"Call me a (former) optimist, but there was a time when for some reason, I thought the Bezos and Zuckerbergs of the world were going to use their brains and wealth to do good things for the world. Instead, they are contributing to its demise."

- devilsmile7

"I’m right there with you. This generation of billionaires has thrown away the opportunity to help the world, or possibly, even save part of the world with the wealth we have not seen individuals ever accumulate in history, which could be focused on everything from the climate to poverty to medicine and beyond be remembered as heroes."

"Ironically, it’s only Bill Gates that turned his money to helping to save an entire continent. It just wasn’t ours, so many people don’t know about it."

- Whatstheretosay44

Survival Mode

"Gestures broadly. Honestly, I think life is more about making peace with your failures than it is about racking up accomplishments."

"Most of us are never going to do the amazing things we hoped for as children. It's like the Rolling Stones said: 'You don't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.'"

- Yak-F**ker-5000

A Rude Awakening

"When I was a teenager in the 80s, struggling down to the library to do the research for my homework, I dreamed of a day where everyone would be able to access libraries from a terminal in their homes. They would have unlimited, free access to all the information and knowledge they need."

"How much better would the world be if everyone could be informed of facts at the touch of a button? Ignorance and stupidity would be left behind on a superhighway of information."

- Major_Twang

No Reciprocation

"Other people."

"I've done everything I could to try and make right with people, to help them, to give them support when they need it, to make sure they never feel the hurt and loneliness I feel every day in my life."

"And then people take advantage of it and only see me as useful in transactional situations. It's never reciprocated in any way."

"I just want one unconditional-love relationship from one other person, or at least something that resembles something of a friendship."

"The last time someone reached out to me via text/phone call, was back in October 2022, and the last time someone reached out to me, without needing anything as the primary motivation of them reaching out, was July of 2022. I've reached out plenty of times to check on people I knew, and offered to hang/chat."

- okimlom

The Unfairness of Infertility

"How easy it is for some people to have kids that they don’t give a s**t about and how impossible it’s been for me."

"I really hope to be a foster parent someday but I wanted to practice on my own kid first before I go screw up someone else’s. I say that very cavalierly, but I genuinely wanted some practice before jumping in with a kid that, no matter what, is dealing with trauma from the separation of bio family."

"It’s precisely because I don’t take that lightly that I hesitate to become a foster parent. I knew before my infertility that I wanted to foster but my trauma also holds me back. It’s unfair shoes for a foster kid to fill when their foster parents are looking for a kid they couldn’t have one their own."

- BreakingCupcakes

Crossfire Commercials

"Crossfire wasn’t half as intense as I thought it was going to be…"

- 2Anon4uAnon

"The Crossfire commercial promised quite a lot. You didn't get to fly into the ring upon the game pieces. And there was no actual fire or lightning, nor the chanting horde of post-apocalyptic children. And worst of all, when I beat my opponents, they didn't spin off into fiery oblivion."

- litetravelr

Though there's a lot of good in the world, there are troubling things, too. What makes it worse is that the things that are often the most disappointing are sold to us as children to be the things to really look forward to. It doesn't add up.