A friend brought my group of friends to a bar on Halloween weekend. I was dressed up as a cowboy. I noticed that pretty much everyone else at that bar was dressed as a vampire. I went around and complimented a lot of them on their awesome vampire costumes.

We eventually left and hopped over to another bar. I'm telling my friend I thought it was weird that everyone there had chosen to dress as a vampire. He tells me that we were actually at a goth bar, and none of them were wearing costumes.

I was adopted by lovely and caring parents, but throughout my entire childhood and teenage years I wanted nothing but distance from them for the sole reason that they were religious.

They weren't even the fanatic types. They were incredibly tolerant and respectful towards just about anything and anyone. They had the belief that they not only couldn't judge anyone, but also would be punished if they did.

When I was 11 I told them I didn't want to go to church anymore and then accepted it. I mean, I was 11 and they already respected my decision.

That just made it all the much harder for us to connect at any level. 90% of everything they did was to talk about Jesus and whatnot. In hindsight, I used to be kind of a jerk about it, while they were always perfectly calm and friendly, even when I downright offended them.

I lost both of them in a car accident when I was 18.

Now I see that whether someone is religious or not, old or not, male or female or neither, black or white, from your country or a foreigner, being a jerk is just that, being a jerk, where you come from and your general philosophy of life can't really do much to make it better or worse.

No matter how right you think you are, don't be mean! And take a moment to appreciate the people you have in your life, today, now.

I think about this pretty often honestly. I had to be about 7 or 8. I'm in the mall with my mom and sister and it is just about closing time. On our way out of a department store we stop at the bathroom before the ride home. My mom sends me into the men's room on my own. Nobody in the bathroom. For some reason my stupid little brain thinks, "I'm gonna crap on a bunch of paper towels and slap it against the mirror..."

I try to think back to why I would ever have this compulsion and I got nothing. Having since worked many service jobs over the years I am profoundly sorry to that custodian.

As I was standing on my front lawn, spraying weed killer on dandelions, a little neighbor girl asked if I was watering my flowers. I replied, "No, I'm killing them." An expression of sadness washed over both of our faces. We shared a moment in silence. "That's mean," she offered and then pedaled off.

When I was a kid at summer camp I used to always find digital watches lying around. I collected like 3 of them one summer and was showing them off to other kids and one was like "hey that's my watch, I took it off when I went swimming". Thought about it and realized, wow yeah I do "find" a lot of these watches near the pool. Turned out I had just been stealing other kids digital watches that they were taking off and leaving by the pool side before swimming. I gave him back his watch.

One of my first jobs I took seriously was in fact McDonald's. You can hate it all you want, but it's incredible how detailed the instructions are. From a processing/logistics point of view, they can make you a fresh hamburger in under a minute. That's amazing if you've ever worked in a kitchen.

I was usually working "initiator" which is like the leader of the kitchen. You decide what gets made first by toasting the buns and sending them down the line with the proper wrapper and condiments with a printed tag on it if it's special (no pickles). Generally speaking you also call out to the co-workers anything special, and if there's large orders of nuggets or something coming in. A hyper 20-year old "inish" can really put the strain on some elderly line workers. I kept them working hard during rush hours.

One particular dinner rush I really gave our only cook Terry a hard time. He was in a motorcycle accident was he was younger. I wouldn't call him handicapped or mentally challenged, he was just a really slow mover and thinker. He kept coming up short on things like nuggets, chicken patties, burgers and it was really slowing us down.

At one point he's holding a dirty tray, walking across the kitchen and I yelled at him to get more burgers cooking. He just stopped, gave me an evil stare, threw the dirty tray on the ground, and yelled, "Not everyone is perfect like you! Some people have to try harder to do normal things!"

My heart sank and I started feeling really bad. I still remember that moment almost 15 years later. If you've ever worked in a busy kitchen you know how those moments create strong bonds between co-workers. I ended up being good friends with the guy, and helped him out a bit more when I could.

I was at an intersection and the lane shifted once you crossed it. I honked at a guy because he got into my lane. I asked him:

"Are you trying to have an accident?"

He told me, "Your lane shifts you idiot!"

99% of the time I am a good driver and the other person is an absolute moron. A few days later I realized the guy was right and I was wrong.

I wish I could time travel and say, "My mistake, you were right."

A co-worker and I were not getting along. Something wasn't clicking and I thought she was just old, rude, and lazy. Eventually I got called into the boss's office and she was there, crying her eyes out. My boss informed me she had been telling them that I was being rude, aggressive, and overall a jerk to this person.

Turns out she felt she was under pressure because of my attitude, and she couldn't handle it. I felt awful, and apologized profusely. I was young at the time and it was a big wake up moment for me. I was at a point in my life where I was trying to turn myself around physically, but now I knew I had to do that for my attitude as well.

That co-worker and I became quite close over time, and even though I left that job 6 years ago, we still keep in touch.

When I texted a girl to hang out (platonically) and her response was, "What would we do? All you ever wanted me for was hooking up."

It was about 10 years ago, when I was 19 and in college. It was one of the only regrets I've had regarding how I've treated another person. I've given her a formal apology and (barring details that reaaaaaaally show how I was the bad guy) explained how I saw things. Now, we're on not enemy terms and she's a mother and married to the best friend that consoled my bad behavior! Win-win?

So, I was driving my car into a roundabout, doing nothing wrong, not cutting up any other drivers, driving at a safe, slow speed, and suddenly HONK!!!! from another driver. I look up and there is a taxi about to join the roundabout and the driver staring straight at me. FFS, I think, these guys think they own the road. Now you're not even allowed to enter the roundabout when they want to.

In my own defense, I was having a bad day so I did something I would never normally do. I slowed my car down to a crawl, and gave him the finger, maintaining eye contact for several seconds, turning to look over my shoulder at him so as to keep up the finger and the eye contact for as long as possible. The look of astonishment on his face at getting the finger from this respectably dressed woman was priceless.

As I exited the roundabout, HONK!!! again, but this time I realized the sound had been from a commercial playing on the car radio. It must be tough, being a taxi driver.

I blew a Tic-tac through a straw into an old guy's face who was working at a car park booth when I was about 12 and still feel terrible about it a decade and a half later.

I teach middle school, so I end up having to play the villain a lot. But one time stands out where I actually WAS the bad guy:

Last block of the day, we're working through something that is not terribly interesting. I hear a few whispers and giggles and my teacher sense goes off. Out of the corner of my eye I see that a note is being passed around the class and that's what's causing the distraction. I muster up my best stern teacher face and boom, "Put that in your backpack or I'm going to have to take it."

Someone had found out it was my birthday - they made me a lovely card and were all signing it.

After being a bit of a tear-away and trying to get my shit together in school I told off a kid for wearing a hat that the school uniform didn't allow. I later learnt he was wearing the hat because he'd lost his hair to chemo. Did not feel good.

For some context, this was in a UK secondary with a blazer-and-trousers-style uniform.

In the past I'd subconsciously tune people out mid conversation and then give a rehearsed response when it was time for me to respond. I didn't even realize I was doing it so much until I'd ask my friends about things that they claimed to have already told me.

When I realized it was a problem to be such a crappy listener, I made a conscious effort to fix it and I'm much better about it now

So when I was a neckbeard loser, I tried asking out this girl. She was hot but she was also in a wheelchair. I remember thinking how awesome it would be asking her out, since I figured not too many dudes would put up with a woman in a wheelchair. She would be just sooo thankful for me because I’m such a good guy to look past her insecurities!

So of course, I ask her out and she rejected me. At first, I was mad. I couldn’t believe a lady in a wheelchair wouldn’t go out with me. Like, who did she think she was? She couldn’t even walk!

But then, I realized I was being a truly evil person. I thought her being in a wheelchair would bring her down to my level but the truth was, she was still an awesome person that shouldn’t be taking scraps just because she couldn’t walk. I was the condescending jerk who was looking looking down on her. It was a wake up call for myself and how I thought of women.

It wasn’t easy. Had to do some self reflecting, found out I had no good qualities any lady wanted to date, and had to work on myself. I’m not perfect, still catch myself in toxic thought, but I’d like to think I’ve improved. Got a wife and she seems happy so there’s that at least.

I didn't have any friends in preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, or college. I wondered why everyone was mean to me. Then I thought maybe the thousands of kids who didn't want to be my friends weren't wrong, maybe I was. So I started consciously being extra nice to everyone. My first day of my first job out of college, a group of guys invited my to go out with them for a drink after work. I have friends now and am no longer a jerk.

A few years ago, while helping a friend move some furniture, his 70ish mother picked up a curtain rod from a pile of them leaning in a corner. Among them was a cast iron one that was very heavy. It fell and knocked her unconscious in a very cartoonish kind of way; it hit her, she straightened up and just fell over backwards. I laughed and could not stop. I realized after a few moments that everyone was staring at me as though I just took a dump on the dining room table. Yep. I am a terrible person.

I was in Tijuana drinking it up and this was in the 90s. I left a bar and when I made it outside, I realized that I left my wallet on the table.

I went back in and saw that different people were there and no wallet. I asked them if they found a wallet and all said no. I got more aggressive with them and started to threaten them if they didn't return the wallet. I was a big guy in those days and I could tell they were scared.

By this time, the bouncer is noticing and I recognize that I'd likely get thrown out soon. So I told them that I'd be waiting for them outside and would beat them to a pulp.

I went outside and was looking in to scare them and plus I was mad. I then reached in my shirt pocket because I felt something there. Sure enough, my wallet was in there.

Felt like such an idiot and still feel like an idiot when I think of it.

I used to pull that nice guy BS. Ask a girl out, get rejected, desperately plead my case about how nice I was even though trying to guilt trip your way into a date is not a nice thing to do at all, then get frustrated when she avoided me and unfriended me on Facebook. Pretty embarrassing to look back on, but if you can't look back and realize you were a total idiot sometimes, you're probably still an idiot.

I was out of town and I went into a frozen yogurt place I'd never seen before with so many flavors. I kept asking for sample cups until I'd tried like 20 of them and was only halfway. It was amazingly fun!

I heard a parent giving a lecture to their kids who wanted to copy me about 'how we don't act like that man and buy ours.' That just ruined it for me, so I dropped a $10 in their tip jar and left.

As a kid, my parents would always take my brother’s side on everything. Not in a bad abusive way, just if he forgot to run an errand “oh, he didn’t mean to forget” meanwhile if I forgot to do a chore it was “why are you being so lazy?”

When I was away at college I realized, and I don’t mean this in a vindictive way or anything, that my brother really has the most absolute pure intentions of anyone on the planet. I have good intentions like 90% of the time, I’m not perfect, but my brother seriously just wants everyone to be happy and help everyone.

So I realized that for most of our childhood I was the “bad guy.”

Seriously though, like I do keto when I’m cutting and he wants to drop a few pounds, (he’s not doing keto) so he meal prepped himself some food and he wrote the carb content on all of it and put it in the fridge and said I could eat whatever.

He literally meal prepped for me without me asking just because he can.

In middle and high school I was a sort of proto-incel, before that was even really a thing (mid-to-late 1990s). I had never had a GF and I was convinced that there was some kind of conspiracy because girls didn't like me. I was super attracted to this one girl in particular, but in true incel fashion I never actually spoke to her; I simply got more and more frustrated over time. Let's call her "Kara".

Anyway, out of the blue one day her (less attractive) best friend and I struck up a conversation, and I saw it as an opportunity. Let's call her "Tina". Tina and I developed a legitimate relationship, but in my mind I would always end up with Kara eventually. Tina was obviously head over heels for me, but I just used her to stay close to Kara.

At some point in all this, Kara did eventually get a BF and I was crushed. I was so angry. I broke up with Tina (shortly after Valentine's Day, no less). It wasn't until a few months later, when I was cleaning out all the notes Tina had sent me, that I realized what a massive moron I had been.

Tina went on to find a much better man than myself, and I learned some valuable lessons. I'm grateful too, because that incident made me reevaluate myself and my approach to women. There is an alternate universe where I am single and on Reddit, complaining about "Stacey" instead of treating women like actual people and not just trophies to be won.

My husband I weren't getting along. He was always doing something that ticked me off and I didn't keep it inside. He in turn was getting fed up with me and eventually it started pushing us apart. About 2 months ago I went to the doctor's office and after a conversation we had, she told me I had anxiety and it was causing me to be irritable and on edge. I immediately felt like a huge asshole and started reflecting back on everything. She wrote me a prescription and I've been feeling so much better. I really didn't realize how hard I was being on him about the silliest stuff. Hes such a great guy and does so much for our family. I was truly the bad guy.