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I don't know...because while I've often done the thought exercise of "if only I could go back and not do this or that" I also realize that where I ended up if I went back and changed things could be worse than I am now. I LIKE (a whole freakin' lot) many parts of my life I am now living, including my love life. If I undid many of my mistakes, I would not be here, living this, I'd be somewhere else doing something (someone? someones?) else. Maybe better, maybe worse.
What I would LOVE to do, if I could, would be to upload my entire consciousness into a very sophisticated computer program that had all of the information about the world, global and local history for all of the places, every piece of data that could come to bear...and then program in different life choices and run a simulation that would show me how my life would have gone if this or that were changed. So it's like I don't quite have regrets, but I do have curiosity over how things could have been instead.
Just running some numbers here, if I could undo my choice to have sex with some of my past partners, and have it not affect my ending up here and now, just purge those generally useless experiences from my life history for sheer lack of enthusiasm in my memory of them as human beings... 56% of my prior lovers would not make the cut. They weren't even worth the time. I would not say they were significant life mistakes, except for the one I married, but just...meh. Tricky thing is, I consider my marriage to the man who fathered my kids to be a very significant mistake, but to avoid that, I'd have had to change the reality of me getting pregnant with my sons. I'd never wish away my sons, I love them, they're great (even if they are teenagers who vex me sometimes, as teenagers will do)...so my biggest fail, I could not erase without also erasing my biggest win.
So. No regrets.
Good answer.
At the moment, I'm getting laid pretty regularly by a very attractive dark skinned lady from another country.
I really can't complain or think of anything that would be better done earlier.
Never mind finding love. If I had the opportunity for a re-do there'd be many more important things to fix.
1) Somehow convince my unborn self to cool his jets for another couple of months and enjoy the pre-natal accomodation as long as possible. This might prevent my old pal cerebral palsy from taking hold.
2) Learn guitar and piano from age 12 or earlier, which my far more co-operative fingers would make easier and fun.
3) Make smarter subject choices all through high school and university to make the work more enjoyable and the grades better.
4) Work part time at the video store across the road to earn money for cars, stereos and such.
5) Smash my senior thesis instead of scraping through it.
6) Spend the following three years on my Ph D.
7) Do an MA in creative writing just because I can, then complete and publish the novel that grows out of it.
8) Buy and rebuild my grandparents' house, move in then build and rent out another property on the same block of land.
9) Divide my time evenly between writing, academic research and teaching and music.
10) Live happily ever after with only a series of dogs for company.
Finding love? Fugeddaboutit. If I achieved the ten things on my list above I'd already be living my best life and having an absolute ball. A relationship would be as irrelevant as it is unnecessary.
At the moment, I'm getting laid pretty regularly by a very attractive dark skinned lady from another country.
I really can't complain or think of anything that would be better done earlier.
...Except maybe bang more hot college chicks..
Playing
Okay did you have to mention her skin tone? This made me laugh.
I am 31, I would go back to my middle school years, not to find love or a life partner, but to date more and prepare myself for relationships when I vet older. So say 1998-2003, ages 11 till 16. That was the time to lay the foundation, not necessarily to find my true love.
Okay did you have to mention her skin tone? This made me laugh.
I am 31, I would go back to my middle school years, not to find love or a life partner, but to date more and prepare myself for relationships when I vet older. So say 1998-2003, ages 11 till 16. That was the time to lay the foundation, not necessarily to find my true love.
Interesting book OP.
I had a moment of at that, too, until I remembered how I describe my boyfriend via his older age, the silver in his hair...sometimes we take the brush and throw down one or two strokes of paint in our speech so that a person gets a bit of color in a description, if it is done with positive feeling and intent, it should not be taken too harshly, I think.
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In most of my thought exercises of how I could have redirected my life somehow, I go back in my mind to when I first began to make life-altering choices, which would be around age 13-14. It was then that I made the choice to live with my Mother (not sure if I'd change that) and at 14 was the first time I had sex with someone I probably should not have. Again, not that it was a life-altering tragedy of any kind, it wasn't really that big of a deal, but looking back there's no gladness that I chose to do that with him. I have a sense that even if a Big Serious Relationship did not result of a sexual encounter, I ought to at least be able to look back and feel glad that I did it. That said person was a positive memory to hold. Not merely "meh whatever, that happened."
Before that approximate age and time in my life, I was more or less at the mercy of the choices of the adults around me, not really directing things in any particular way. I might wish to go back and do better in school, or learn a language or musical instrument when I was "baby smart"...but for the most part I didn't feel like my decisions were my own to make, until the point where a judge in family court looked me in the eye and asked, "Who do YOU want to live with?"
If you're looking for love that might lead to and sustain a long term relationship, I think your late 20s is an ideal time. We're really not fully formed emotionally or cognitively until about 25, and assuming some dating and maybe a relationship or two before 25 to get some sense of who you are and what we're looking for, you can hit your late 20s with valuable relationship and life experience.
None of that guarantees anything, and lots of things can derail your emotional development and leave you no more equipped to handle a serious long term relationship at 28 than you were at 18, but having married the first woman I dated, when I was just shy of 23, I know how stupid that was. I'd welcome the chance to be a different kind of stupid.
In my case, I'd clearly need to work on and through some things that had me socially isolated during those years from about 14-21, but even for people whose social development is more typical, where they actually do things-learn stuff-and develop, using that time and that process to intelligently shape your choices seems ideal.
I finished listening to a book called "A gift of time" in which an 80 year old man full of regrets on the night he was going to commit suicide has a spaceship crash in his front yard, and as a reward for helping the ships AI repair the ship he gets to have his consciousness downloaded into his 10 year old self 70 years earlier. so basically he is 10 years old in the 1940's with 80 years of life experience and a phd in physics in his head.
Reading this got me thinking if I could do the same, when would I go to?
I know I definitely would not go pre puberty. I would most likely go back sometime between 1986-1991
between the ages of 16 and 21 when my dating pool was at it's deepest, and my success rate was at it's highest, armed with the knowledge of who were prone to having affairs, who were going to develop drug habits, the ones that will eventually become right leaning materialistic sellouts, who was going to age well, the ugly ducklings that will become semi attractive or attractive 30, 40 and 50 year old's.
and even with girls I did not know back then (the first time around) I would still have 30+ extra years of relationship experience to draw on to make better choices at a time when I still had way more options than in 2017. or even look up those women I have dated in resent years who were a great match and we got along great when together but the only obstacle in our relationship was kids from previous relationships took up a lot of their time(which is why I stopped dating single mothers) or crazy ex's were always interfering, but meet them BEFORE they had kids or got with said ex.
What do you guys think, what age would you send your consciousness to?
And how do you think it would help or do you not think it would help?
I'd probably send my consciousness back to my current age. As of right now, while I have regrets, I don't see the point in going back. I could probably think I am making better choices the next time around, but I could only be setting myself up for something even worse.
I wouldn't go back at all. It's *WAY* too easy to remember only the good and skim over all the hardships. While I have some small regrets, they get smaller with each passing year. I highly doubt I'll have any big regrets from this point forward.
If the aliens were to offer a reward, I'd want to experience something other-worldly... or just have them end my existence.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fleetiebelle
Instead of going back in time knowing what you know now to change the future, why not just use what you know now now to change your future?
Good question. I really think some people believe there aren't datable people out there. I find dating in my 40s to be better than in my 20s. I don't get the viewpoint they have.
Location: In the cold, dark wasteland of eternity...
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I wouldn't go back in time...I would go forward, into the future. I would want to have the hard life lessons in love, heartbreak and loss under my belt so that if I did find a guy that checked off all my boxes in the future, I'd know what red flags and warning signs to look for before I allowed myself to fall for him. I like and respect the person that I've become and grown into, and I wouldn't want to go back in time with just the knowledge that I've accumulated thus far.
As heartbreaking as some of my life experiences have been, I wouldn't want to go back in time to change it or to do anything different to alter them...because that might end up changing the person that I am now and it might put me in a worse position life-wise than I am in currently. Besides, I wouldn't want to cause a paradox in the space-time continuum and possibly (and inadvertently) change my life for the worse.
If it's meant for me to find 'love', it'll happen - cheating nature and going back in time won't change anything. And, come to think of it, going forward in time probably wouldn't change my fate either.
Interesting thread, Cy.
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at that, too, until I remembered how I describe my boyfriend via his older age, the silver in his hair...sometimes we take the brush and throw down one or two strokes of paint in our speech so that a person gets a bit of color in a description, if it is done with positive feeling and intent, it should not be taken too harshly, I think.
