You don’t know what you got til it’s gone…

That goes for a lot of things in life, but especially our YOUTH.

And I think a lot of us probably have regrets from high school.

Let’s see what AskReddit users had to say about this.

1. Missed the signs.

“Not paying attention to the signs/cues that there were a lot of really nice girls that had a crush on me.

I was shy and somewhat reserved through school and just didn’t pay attention. I think my life would be way different than it is if I had.

Not to have s** with them or anything exactly, just some specific girls I found out years later really had a crush on me that I thought I was way to far out of their league to even try.”

2. Missed out.

“Focusing on my trash, manipulative ex boyfriend instead of getting myself out there.

Missed out on playing a sport I loved, making friends, going to prom, etc.”

3. You mattered anyway.

“Thinking I had to be in a relationship to matter…

Wish my younger self had realized faster that happiness came from being true to myself and to not define self worth on others.”

4. Never too late.

“Not getting my license when I should have.

I still can’t drive, and at this point, learning how feels like a pipe dream.”

5. Just a bubble.

“Caring what other people thought.

You don’t understand how it’s a bubble and just a fraction of your life until you out.”

6. Should’ve…

“Hung with the wrong crowd.

I should have hung out with the nerds. One in my math class started some very popular tech and is worth billions.”

7. Doesn’t really matter.

“Giving a s**t about any of it.

Literally none of it mattered. The people, the drama, the classes. None of it. The only thing I gained from it was scars and trauma.

Could have been much better prepared for the world if I had just skipped it and spent the time in a library or volunteering at an old folk’s home.”

8.  Gotta go with the flow.

“I really wish I’d just gone with the flow and lived in the moment a bit more instead of overthinking things to the point where I ended up self-sabotaging haha.

I may have accidentally turned down a girl I had a massive crush on in high school. I’d liked her for years and had convinced myself she was the one I was going to end up with, marry etc. Turns out she probably liked me too… for a while her brother would literally walk past me at school and yell “my sister likes you!” but I just assumed he was trolling me or something.

Well, one day we were on the train home after school and her friends suddenly and mysteriously disappeared to another carriage, leaving us alone together. She asked “Hey, I was wondering, do you… have a crush on me?” as she leaned in hopefully for my answer.

How did I react to this situation? I started rummaging through my school backpack pretending I was looking for something, and changed the subject to some dumb thing that my brother did on the weekend. She leaned back in her seat and looked visibly disappointed.

Now why did I do this, you ask? Partly because I was nervous and had no idea how to handle the situation, but also because I kept hearing adults talk about how unlikely relationships were to last if they started at that age, so I told myself we weren’t ready yet.

I was going to wait 4-5 more years until we’d left school before I made my move, because then it would last, I told myself. Of course, I waited so long that she eventually lost interest and we drifted away.

Yeah… teenage me had some pretty strange ideas about love and relationships.”

9. Yikes.

“Letting myself fall for an older guy and move across the country for him. I left home at 17, right before senior year started.

After I finally came to my senses and left him I realized that he groomed me from the very beginning (when we first met I was 15 and he was 22). His goal was to isolate me from my friends, family and anything important to me. I missed out on so much in those years I was stuck in BFE Michigan. It changed the entire trajectory of my life.

Whenever I see someone post something in the vein of “That 23 year old isn’t with you cause you’re ‘mature’ for your age” I just want to reach out and hug every teenager out there and tell them they are enough all on their own and there’s so much better out there anyway.”

10. Obsessed with it.

“Spending so much time obsessing over not having a relationship.

I started probably at 13, so by high school, it was at a fever pitch. I felt like everyone around me was dating, falling in love, having s**. In retrospect, I realize how much of that was an exaggeration and outright lying.

This obsession lead to some pretty ill-advised crushes and infatuations that make cringe so much thinking about it.”

11. Could have been different.

“Not being more confident.

My inner voice talked me out of a lot of things that would have made my teenage years more rewarding and productive.”

12. Sad story.

“I wish I had known that a kid in my drama class was being a**sed by his parents.

I wish I could have offered him help and gotten him out of that house before he k**led himself.”

13. Drop out.

“Not finishing school and dropping out.

Although I had no direction or any parental care at the time and was depressed.

I did get my GED and i’m in my final year of getting a bachelors in computer science.

Not bad for a high school drop out.”