If you believe in the butterfly effect, you know that even the tiniest action can cause an avalanche of bad outcomes in the long run. Sometimes, that action is intended; other times, it’s something completely accidental.
Just think of the discovery of penicillin: microbiologist Alexander Fleming found the Penicillium mold in his petri dish after coming back from a vacation – he had no intention of discovering antibiotics.
But sometimes, the accidental action has the potential to ruin someone’s life. That’s what we discovered when we looked at some Reddit threads where netizens asked, “Have you ever unintentionally messed up someone’s life? How?”
From lost college scholarships to exposed secret affairs, these people were the unintentional catalysts for some dramatic incidents!
#1
Freshman year of college, week 2. Playing touch football in the quad with randoms. Go up for the same pass as some guy. I catch the ball because I can jump higher. Down he goes. Down i come on top of him. ::CRACK:: Compound fracture to tibia. Everyone screams, he’s in shock, I’m in shock picking the dirt off his protruding bone. Ambulance arrives, takes him away. Weeks later he comes back to clear out his dorm room. Turns out he was in school on a track scholarship and without that leg he couldn’t run. Without running, he couldn’t keep the scholarship. Without the scholarship, his family couldn’t afford to send him to school. He will never run competitively again. My bad.
Image source: anon, Hanson Lu/unsplash
#2
When I was in highschool I was studying Blood types and how traits get passed on from parents to children.
I started asking my family members what their blood types were in order for me to make a chart for Dominant and Recessive traits.
Well I got to my Aunt and uncle who were both O positive and after some research determined that none of their kids were fathered by my uncle because they had completely different blood types.
She confessed that she cheated on him 20 years earlier and continued the affair for 9yrs. Uncle was devastated and kids were wrecked. They got divorced, my aunt moved to Alabama to live with her long time BF, my cousins got all [messed up] and one moved in with her own BF and got pregnant.
TL;DR: Studied blood types in high school. Revealed my cousins did not belong to my uncle. My aunt cheated and lied for 20 years.
Image source: BeDazzledBootyHolez, Yunus Tuğ/unsplash
#3
We had an employee whose entire job was to manage this spreadsheet. To help her out, I wrote a massive Excel macro that did her 8 hours of work in 30 seconds.
Instead of finding something for her to do, the boss fired her and I got employee of the month honors and a $750 award for saving the company money by eliminating her position.
Edit: By “entire job”, I mean everyday. I replaced all of her responsibilities in totality with an Excel macro. She was replaced with a ctrl-G.
Image source: cexshun, Lala Azizli/unsplash
#4
I crashed a friend of a friend’s party. It was quite crowded, about 40-60 people in a medium sized house. I was drinking some beer and eating some pringles. When I was done with the pringles, I put it on the floor because the table was full of random [stuff] and I was too lazy to tidy it up.
Several minutes later I heard a crash and people screaming all over the house. I went to the general direction of the noise and saw a man in the middle of shattered glass table. There was blood all over the floor and some of the shattered glass had pierced his back and the back of his head. I asked the guy next to me what had happened, then to my shock he replied “He trip on an empty can of pringles on the floor and fell on the table”
He’s now paralyzed waist down and can’t speak properly.
Image source: Wulvric, Nicola Nuttall/unsplash
#5
I introduced a friend of mine to World of Warcraft while he was in college. He was graduate biochem student and had an internship in a lab somewhere. From what I could tell, he was on his way to a pretty good career.
Now he lives in his mom’s basement and has no job.
But he does still have a WoW account.
So he’s got that going for him, which is nice.
Image source: H3d0n1st, Samsung Memory/unsplash
#6
When I was 6 my sister and I were skipping rocks. I tried to pick a big one up and lift it behind my head to throw it. As my arms swung backwards, the rock slipped from my fingers and hit my sister in the back of the head.
6 months later she started having seizures. She still gets them 21 years later. I can’t help but think it’s my fault she’s epileptic.
Image source: anon, Bert Sagi/unsplash
#7
When I was a freshman in high school (14 years old), my friend told me how she had been sleeping with her best friend’s dad for over a year.
I don’t do well with big secrets on my conscience, so I broke down after marching band one night. I told one of my friends who made me tell our band teacher, who reported it to the police and talked to my friend’s parents.
She told her parents I was lying about it, but that Monday morning I was called to the principal’s office where I had to tell the band teacher, principal, and the police.
Later that week, the news reported that the man was arrested. I don’t really know what happened after that, but it’s safe to assume that I probably ruined his life and he doesn’t even know who I am.
Image source: Nesnie_Lope, Darí Dorofeeva/unsplash
#8
I started a butterfly effect that got one of my highschool teachers fired and blacklisted in the state. He was trying to get the theatre teacher fired behind her back and sketchy around female students, one day he called me out for waiting to use a saw for Stagecraft, and I blew up on him, called him every name in the book and essentially told him he was a [horrible] person for reasons X, Y, and Z. I got sent to the office but since my record was spotless they just sent me back to class and had a meeting with the teacher. Eventually a lot of other students got the courage to call him out too.
The next year I graduated and I heard that he was harassing a female student and the entire class he was teaching reported it. He got fired within that week. It feels good to win.
I also slashed his tires.
Edit: His wife also left him after he got fired.
Image source: Chim3cho, Vitaly Gariev/unsplash
#9
In high school my then boyfriend broke up with me. One morning I noticed him showing our mutual friends a coke bottle. I asked a friend later what was in the bottle. It was gasoline. GASOLINE! He brought it to school to get high.
I ended up turning him in to campus police and he ended up going into a mental institution and expelled from school. He’s still pretty messed up, arrests for trapping and such. Good times.
Image source: rectangleCURVE, Alex Vinogradov/unsplash
#10
My best friend when I was younger was an incredibly fast sprinter. His dream was to represent our country in the Olympics. He very easily could have done that, had it not been for me.
We were out one day playing in the forest (we were about 12 or 13 at the time). We saw a little stream and thought how cool it would be if we jumped across it. We did a few times and it was awesome. We did it one more time and I bumped into him in mid air. He landed awkwardly and broke both his legs. Bones were sticking out. It was horrific. I ran to get his mother and he was taken away in an ambulance. He had several surgeries and months of physical therapy. He never ran again and we lost contact.
I blamed myself for years and watched the Olympics last year and felt angry that he wasn’t there, when he should have been. I bumped into him recently and drunkenly apologised for ruining his chances at being an athlete. He laughed, called me an idiot for blaming myself for so long, we had a few drinks and [slept together]. So it all worked out.
Image source: convenah, Curated Lifestyle/unsplash
#11
Being in the US military, committing adultery is taken pretty serious. A “friend” of mine told me she was hooking up with her married superior. (I say “friend”, because no real friend would have put me in that situation.) I got asked about it by someone higher up and I wasn’t about to ruin my career by lying, so I told the truth. A lot of people took her side. They both lost rank. He got kicked out. His wife left him. Last I heard they were married. They deserve each other.
Image source: sawheatness, Getty Images/unsplash
#12
This is late, but I might as well get it off my chest.
Became close friends with a couple, fell in love for the first time with one of them and essentially stole him from her. She was autistic and had anxiety disorders and couldn’t leave her house for two years because of the breakup. Still lives with her parents and doesn’t have any intentions of leaving.
On top of that, her parents were going to leave rental properties and money to her now ex, and I’m a [bad] person (obviously) so I kind of ruined his life too.
Image source: Puppy_Dragon, Getty Images/unsplash
#13
In elementary school I told the class there was no such thing as Santa.
Image source: Stumbling_tortoise, _ drz __/unsplash
#14
I got into a car wreck, it was my fault. But the other driver was driving without a license. I found out later he was deported.
Image source: megmegshell, Getty Images/unsplash
#15
I used to live in China, and while I speak good Chinese, an acquaintance I made did no speak it at all. Well, me, him and his local GF all went out to eat. The 2nd time we went out, I brought along a Chinese friend, and the three of us were talking in Chinese, and his GF brought up the fact her BF played piano well. Well, next time I met friend I brought up his amazing piano skills only for him to say he never played piano in his life. I then casually mentioned that his GF said he did, and assuming they were in an open relationship told him what his GF.
He dumped her.
Found out 3 months later, that it wasn’t his GF i met the 2nd time, but the GFs sister. Oops.
Image source: anon, Maccy/unsplash
#16
Hit a car in the rain. Everyone (little girl, boy, mother, and dog) was fine but the weird thing was that the car was full of clothes and seemingly random items. I distinctly remember a blender. And they were all dressed in there pajamas as though they’d just hopped out of bed, loaded up the car, and set out. Well, eventually the father shows up. I’m standing next to the little boy, he’s probably twelve, while all the cops, firemen, and on lookers are hurrying around us. It is absolutely pouring. The father sees the kid and walks straight passed him to go look at the car. It didn’t hit me until later that they were running from him, but I knew something was off. I looked at the kid and said I was sorry and that I couldn’t see through the rain. He didn’t even look back. He just stood there staring straight ahead in his soaked clothes with that angry look kids get when they’re trying not to cry. I knew he hated me and I knew I had just put the cherry on top of a horrible childhood.
I will never forget that moment. They never filed an insurance claim and I never saw them again. I destroyed someone’s life and all I had to pay for was a new bumper and grill for my truck.
Image source: Stolypin26, cheng xiao/unsplash
#17
When I was around 20 years old I was still living at home. A friend came to visit me once and brought his girlfriend to meet me. She decided she’d had to have me instead, left him, and actively started pursuing me. I wanted nothing to do with her as she was not my type but she kept calling and my sisters caught her looking in the windows.
Eventually I had the bright idea to introduce her to another friend so I can get her to leave me alone. They actually hit it off and eventually got married and had a couple of kids. Sounds good, doesn’t it.
Except it wasn’t. They had a terrible relationship, had both kids taken away, and were homeless for a while. I tried to save him from her by bringing him to my apartment in a neighbouring city somewhere he could haven’t a place away from her and get his life back in order. A few days later, she found out where I lived and came and got him while I was at work.
Eventually they did split up permanently. He remarried several times, had several kids, was always having trouble with support payments and insurance. He couldn’t get a decent job and has always been on the brink financially.
Currently he has his own lawn and garden business but is still struggling. Out of guilt AND because he’s still one of my best friends, I help him out financially and materially whenever I can but I can’t help but wonder how much better his life might have been if not for me. All because I didn’t want this girl to keep bugging me.
Image source: Goatboy1, LinkedIn Sales Solutions/unsplash
#18
Crashed a car with my girlfriend at the time in the passenger seat and broke her back, shattered some bones in her hands, and put a gash on one side of her mouth ruining her smile. She was likely destined for Cambridge or Oxford, was an excellent piano player and had everything her somewhat meagre upbringing could afford her to get her where she was likely going. Incredibly talented intelligent and fairly pretty young girl. Once she was out of resting and back to school she became lazy and unmotivated, was kicked out of the private school she had a scholarship to, her damaged hands meant she couldn’t play anywhere near the level she used to be able to and the big scar on her cheek made her feel ugly and she let go of her body. We parted ways fairly amicably, but later she came to resent me for the issues the crash caused the rest of her life. Last I heard she was at a local community college studying photography, where she apparently had fallen in with the wrong crowd and wasn’t doing too well.
I’d love to go back in time and brake a few metres earlier, or at least message her and tell her how sorry I really am, but I know I should leave it in the past.
The crash changed my life as well, I had recently passed my PPL and was enjoying that, I picked an illness up in hospital which kept me from flying for about a month. I was then meant to go onto commercial training, but in the time I was in hospital, financial ruination of my father meant that was no longer possible, so I went to college to study aeronautical engineering, which I wasted, went into a retail job where I still am, and that’s the story of my last 6 years.
This went a bit of course and for that I apologise.
Image source: petaboil, Kristen Sheets/unsplash
#19
I introduced my friend to both World of Warcraft and League of Legends. He used to be an aerospace engineering student. Now he’s taking one class at a community college.
Image source: Beardglasseshat, Fredrick Tendong/unsplash
#20
I was playing a show with my band, opening up for another band who was on the verge of breaking and was gracious enough to let us on their bill. They had a few notable people from record labels come out to the venue that night, who were seated right by the stage. As I was setting my guitar rig up for our set, I accidentally knocked over a mic stand from the stage that fell onto the table that the record execs were sitting at, which led to their drinks being knocked over and spilled all over them. I wanted to apologize and buy them drinks, but right as that happened, the lead singer of our band began to play the first song. From the corner of my eye, I could see them getting up to leave and they never came back.
Image source: thedannychang, Maxwell Hunt/unsplash
#21
I worked at a restaurant in high school. One day at school talking to a girl in my art class
“Hey I saw your mom last night!”
“With my dad..?”
“Uh no..some random guy I didn’t know”
“She said she was getting groceries..and never came back with any”
The parents got divorced.
Image source: falconpuppy, Andrej Lišakov/unsplash
#22
HARRY POTTER SPOILERS FOLLOW: About six years after the last Harry Potter book had come out, I was discussing it with one of my best friends – who was a huge Harry Potter fan and bookreader as well. So I mention that I thought the epilogue was stupid because it’s very unlikely that everyone ends up married to the person they dated in high school. And apparently, she hadn’t yet finished the book and got super pissed. I felt awful, but in a way, I was like, *it’s been out for six years. Either read it or let me know you didn’t.*.
Image source: nfmadprops04
#23
A gentleman came in for a bone scan that checks to see if cancer has spread to the bone. His doctor hadn’t told him that some of his other tests had come back positive. “So you’re here today for this scan because of the cancer they found.” ” What cancer?” You’ve never seen such fast back tracking.
Image source: Atomic-pi
#24
A family friend that was drunk at a local baseball game told me that I was adopted. After arguing for 20 minutes with him I asked my mom. She broke down in tears. I was 18 at the time.
So reversed your question but it ruined my day…and the next year of my life.
Image source: kekembas17
#25
I was at a party and met an old flame,she kinda acts like maybe she wants some more weasel,but not right then because she has a boyfriend,I didn’t do anything wrong,so no big deal.
I didn’t think anything about it,was leaving later on and got jumped by her boyfriend and one of his friends.
Got beat up really bad.
About three or four months later I run across some bad dudes,known felons that I used to see around,not really friends,just ran in the same party crowds,I just knew them by first names or a nickname.
We are at a bar,they ask specifically about the dude who beat me up,if I knew where he was,cause he did something to p**s them off,and these were dudes you didn’t want mad at you.
I didn’t ask anymore,all I told them is where his girlfriend lived.
He’s been missing since that week,as far as I know.
That’s been about 20 years ago.
Ran into the girl about 5-6 years ago,she looks at me,turns white and leaves.
So I might have REALLY ruined someone’s life.
And I’m not losing sleep.
Image source: satans_ferret
#26
Not sure if I “ruined” it, but I seemed to have made it a bit awkward. 25 years ago in high school I was introduced to a kid from a neighboring school. He said his name was Craig, but I thought he said his name was Crud. No big deal right? I laughed and apologized for thinking his folks named him Crud. A few years later after high school I ran into him when he was working at an autobody repair shop. There he was, standing there with the name Crud embroidered on his company issued shirt. Oops!
Image source: DyingLion
#27
I used to be a nanny and one night my one kid was not listening to me what so ever. He was playing video games and I had given him multiple warnings. (Thirty minuets until dinner, Fifteen, ten etc.) It was usually understood that he needed to finish a game and then be at the table when it was ready. I would never make him get off without many time warnings and if he was in the middle of something and would be a few minuets that wasn’t a problem. I told him dinner was ready, his siblings were already sitting at the table and he started another game while I was behind him and said he had been in one for a while. He was on my last nerve so I turned off the router. He threw a fit and screamed that I had ruined his entire life then cried for half an hour. This was five years ago and needless to say his life is fine. He no longer throws fits and we are pretty close.
Image source: royal_rose_
#28
According to my ex I ruined his life. He quit his job to “take care of me” (I in no way needed taking care of. It made life a little easier for me but I could have managed on my own). I was dealing with low level disability onset and he was basically driving me to work and doctors appointments. When he wasn’t driving me around he was playing games or sleeping around though. Eventually when he decided to go back to work the only place that would take him is Walmart, right before I left him. He has convinced himself and several other people that I’m the reason he’s stuck at such a low end job while I have a manager position in tech that I in no way worked for.
Image source: Marissani
#29
Caught a dude for massive theft at my business. He came into my office, and begged me not to go to the police because that would mean the end of his marriage. So we signed an agreement where in lieu of criminal complaint he would return what money he had left (he blew about half of it on stupid [stuff] already) and admitted to the theft in writing. So he makes payments on the agreement, and like a [jerk] he is, stops once the statute of limitations for criminal complaint has passed. Which is really odd, because he already paid back about 85% of the money stipulated in the agreement. I’m pretty sure he got some bad legal advice somewhere. So we file a civil suit against him for the entire amount of theft plus a massive penalty plus our court costs as laid out in the agreement, he spends roughly $30K defending against the suit, his wife finds out about it, and now it’s on his record for 20 years because we win and he owes us more money than he will ever see again in his life. The really stupid thing is that if he paid us the money he spent on defending the suit, he would have paid off the agreement.
Image source: toml3030
#30
I came into a woman’s life she had a great career and prospects but I was so demanding she spent all her time on me. Years later she’s struggling to find a footing in a career and a social circle of her own.
Sorry, mum.
Image source: GeorgeHowells1, Getty Images/unsplash
#31
I mean, I kinda just set it up so that they would do it to themselves. I was getting ready to move out of an apartment where I had threr roommates and a couch guy. I had renewed my lease, but the couch guy offered to do it for me, the roommate that was letting him stay there was leaving so he’d need to find somewhere to live.
He had been dragging his feet on getting his end of the paperwork done, like, stuff that took 10 minutes and that I had printed for him. One day, as I’m getting ready to leave, he tells me that he went to the leasing office and finished his paperwork and they told him that I should just give him my key. No reason to drop it off at the office. Which struck me as weird. I went by the office to talk to them about this and make sure it was on the level, which of course it wasn’t.
The leasing office people tell me that he never dropped off any paperwork and that you would never, *ever* just give your key to someone else. So, his stupid little plan became clear to me. What he wanted to do was just take the key and live in the room while I was responsible for every payment until the lease expired. I was kinda furious, so I told them to put the room on the public waitlist in two days, turned in my key, and left.
I shot him a text that he needed to get his paperwork in, outright ignoring the lie, but also not letting him know that the room would go to the first in line in the next two days. I left him with the impression that his little scheme was still going according to plan. Things would only go wrong for him if he went forward with it. Which he did. The room was filled by someone on the waitlist by the end of the week, and I didn’t pay a dime in additional rent. He was kicked out and Portland’s newest homeless youth. He sent a pretty long, angry, and rambling text to me sometime later, which I just ignored. I’m pleased with my work.
Image source: anon
#32
Told my mate that her [jerk] “boyfriend” cheated on her at school. She dumped him.
He became a raving alcoholic. (Still is 25 yrs later)
Honestly, I think he was always destined to be [messed] up, this was just an emotional catalyst.
Don’t feel bad at about it all.
Don’t cheat. Don’t be a [jerk]. Have your friends backs.
Image source: anon
#33
Right after college, I worked in a copy/shipping/print shop. (Like a FedEx store with more services, basically.) The day before Valentine’s Day, this college-age guy comes in and says he wants to get something laminated. It was a Transformers Valentine’s Day card he made for his girlfriend when they were in grade-school together, which he recently found and now wants to give it to her a second time, years later.
Pretty sweet, right?
I’m in the middle of a large print job, so I tell the guy it’ll be around 30min before I can get to it. He pays, gives the card to me, and leaves. I finish my current job and go to laminate the card. I put the card in the plastic sleeve and between some heavy cardstock, feed it into the machine’s rollers… and the machine eats it. It gets caught between the rollers and the machine starts twisting and ripping it all up, melting the plastic together and crushing the card. I try to reverse the machine and get it out, but it’s jammed in there really good. I wound up having to actually take the machine apart to get it out.
The card was utterly trashed. Singed, crumpled, ripped, and sealed in lumpy melted plastic. When I told the guy and showed him what was left of the card, I felt like I was kicking a puppy. He just had the saddest, most helpless expression on his face.
I managed to extract the remnants of the card from the plastic and scanned it all in, then spent the next two hours doing my best with Photoshop to fix all the damaged spots and creases, then printed it out on cardstock and laminated that. It actually looked pretty good when I was done, but… I know it wasn’t the same. Ugh, I feel bad just thinking about it. That poor guy.
Image source: vauntedsexboat
#34
I was stuck in traffic returning a Zipcar 2 hours late. When I got there, a couple was waiting there all dressed up, and very upset that they just missed their friend’s wedding ceremony.
EDIT: Zipcar is a car rental company that operates online and sticks their cars in garages all over your city. People usually rent by the hour.
Image source: krebstarpatron
#35
I had never played Pokemon before and I was at a friends friends house. I selected new game on his gameboy. He was not impressed.
Image source: TookThisName
#36
There was a guy I used to work with who went on holiday with his girlfriend.
While he was away we thought it would be hilarious to spread a rumour round the office saying that he’d proposed and she said yes, thinking that when he got back he’d be like wtf. His inbox was flooded with congratulations from colleagues.
Little did we know though, that he actually did propose on holiday, and she said no.
He came to work for two days that week, then we never saw him again.
Edit: for people who are saying I’m a horrible person; he wasn’t just a colleague but a good friend of two years. I didn’t do anything maliciously, it was the sort of joke that he would have had a good laugh about if it had gone how it was intended to.
Image source: anon
#37
A guy friend was really chatty with a female friend at a party. They didn’t know each other prior to the party. The next morning I said something about her leaving early to pick up her boyfriend.
Turns out the guy friend didn’t know about the boyfriend and she had spent the night with the guy. He falls for women easily, he was devastated.
Image source: anon
#38
“Hey! Long time no see! Oh my gosh, congratulations! How many months already?”
She just got fat…
Luckily it’s one of those distant family members I only see once every two years or so.
Image source: Delightfully
#39
There was this kid that always got straight A’s in hs because he cheated constantly. he got into Stanford because of it. he cheated off of me and we got caught, teacher thought I was cheating off of him so I flipped (I was on the A- B+ line) and got people in the class to take my side because every student knew he cheated. my teacher then told other teachers so he got caught in every class after that, didn’t graduate and obviously didn’t go to college. he deserved it but I feel bad.
edit: he was a really smart guy, came up with creative ways to cheat. If he had worked as hard studying as he did to get out of studying he still could’ve gone to a USC/Cal/UCLA level school, but probably not Stanford or Ivy League. Stanford is weird about admissions so you never know.
Image source: cjwiegmann
#40
I was young, my wife was home pregnant with our first child, and I was out late one evening getting her a drink from Sonic. Which was one of her cravings. I should say at the time I was working a full time job and going to school at night so I was pretty tired. It was after 10pm, and I was waiting on traffic in a median to pull into the fast food place. All clear, so I start to go and all of a sudden there was a loud bang and I black out for a second. It turned out that a guy on a motorcycle whipped out of the gas station next to Sonic and I hit him on my way through. I blacked out b/c the the air bag went off and knocked me out for a second. When I came to I was rolling forward through the oncoming lane and I saw sparks flying when I looked out my drivers side window as the motorcycle skidded down the road. I put it in park got out still dazed and fell over. Bunch of people at Sonic ran over to me and the guy on the motorcycle. Thing is, he had his kid on the back… About 15-16 y/o.
Cops got there and they called life flight. I never saw the guys motorcycle lights on and when I saw it going down the road I didn’t see lights on. I just didn’t see him. I am pretty sure he didn’t have them on but b/c it happened so fast and I was already tired I can’t be 100% sure. I got the usual breathalyzer and what not which all came back negative. They both survived, but the kid was some big football star at the high school and probably would have had some scholarship lined but b/c of the accident he had to get some major surgeries and steel rods put in his legs. Nothing ended up happening legally as it was ruled an accident and there was no followup. Just what I did to make sure they survived and about the kid. I’ll never forget the look that kids grandpa was giving me at the scene of the accident when both his son and grandson were being picked up by life flight and weren’t sure if they were going to make it.
Image source: BrilliantDynamitesNe
#41
One of my former middle school friends probably claims I did. I always hung out at M’s house, since she lived like 4 blocks away and she liked when I help her watch her four younger siblings (I adore children and her mom was always at work/out). I would sleep over often because it was middle school and that’s what you did. Every once in a while, her mother would come home and act weird/smelly funny (I was sheltered and didn’t know what drunk was). Whenever this would happen, M would tell me to go home since her mom was sick. This ritual of her mother coming home drunk occurred more frequently, until I started to worry. Around this time M throws a huge birthday party and invites just about every 7th grade girl to her house for a sleepover. M’s mom was her usual drunk self and many girls decided to go home. I felt bad for M and stayed with her. While talking to her that night, I found out that her mother was having M drive her car home from the bars when she was too drunk so she wouldn’t get any more DUIs. M was 13. I was scared for her, so I did (what I thought was) the right thing and told the guidance counselor at my school. M’s living conditions were investigated and it was determined that they were unfit. M and her four siblings were put into foster care. When I saw her 3 years after the incident, she gave me the “you’re dead to me” look. It broke my heart, and it still does. I hope her life is better and she’ll eventually forgive me. Life is rough.
**TL;DR: My middle school friend was placed in foster care because I cared about her safety.**.
Image source: mariescurie
#42
I was playing soccer and me and another player went up for the ball on a corner kick. We hit our heads together both got concusions, his was alot worse then mine and he can’t play sports anymore. Happened when we were 13 years old.
Image source: 238
#43
As a professor, I gave a student a grade lower than he felt he deserved. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but some unlikely sequence of events must have led from that grade to some horrific outcome, because he wrote on RateMyProfessor, “QuietlySitting ruined my life!!!!!”.
Image source: quietlysitting
#44
I ruined someone’s sophomore year. He was my neighbor in the dorm and we were great friends so we decided to room together the next year…I decided to transfer schools for a number of reasons but I didn’t tell anybody until I fully decided which was pretty late in the year. He ended up getting assigned a total creep for a roommate that apparently made his year pretty [bad] and we never spoke again after parting ways. When I checked in with another friend he said he heard he talked a lot of [trash] about me and was pretty pissed off. This was 11 years ago. My wife’s parents happened to be friends with the parents of another guy in my hall freshman year and it turns out he’s getting married and my would be roommate is the best man…the wedding is this Saturday and we’re going… I’ve been having anxiety for the last few weeks just hoping we can put stupid [stuff] behind us and get along like we did as freshmen.
Image source: FunctionBuilt
#45
I kinda ruined this kid’s life. During basic training we had to do a counter ied course which he took especially hard and decided he couldn’t hack it. So I told him to quit, if you can’t hack it you can’t hack it ,no shame in it. Instead of quitting this tiny little dude decided to go try and fight our biggest scariest drill sergeant. Got a dishonorable.
Image source: anon
#46
My mother stayed in a [bad] marriage for years because of me. After she divorced, she refused to go back home to her family because she knew that moving to and living in India would be detrimental to me (and it absolutely would’ve). Of course, the process of supporting me and trying to take care of herself left her in some pretty serious debt, namely student debt (which means it can never be discharged), so now, even though I’m an adult, she’s still stuck in America, because there’s no way she’d be able to make her payments on student debt if she went to India and tried to work there. Besides which, she has American citizenship and has been paying into Social Security and risks losing access to it if she leaves too soon or defaults/doesn’t pay her student debt. So now she’s trapped in a country she hates with a job she only somewhat likes at best and a nearly-useless degree and tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, and will be for at least another decade.
**tl;dr – I ruined my mother’s life by being born.**.
Image source: Nyxelestia
#47
Thought I ruined some girls life in elementary school. Teacher left a couple of us alone in the classroom, we were doing some work. Teacher asked us not to look at our grades for that quarter, which of course made everyone want to.
But I was a good little boy, so I didn’t. One girl looked at her grade and got really pissed. She told her mom. The mom called the teacher. Teacher called me to rat pissed-girl out, which I did, but was able to cover for everyone else.
Came to school the next day with pissed-girl, pissed-girls friends, and everyone I covered for calling me “Benedict Arnold”, “You ruined my life” and other such [stuff]. Actively felt bad about it for months. Every day I felt sick with myself. I really felt like I ruined her life.
Had her in a high school class a couple years later. We didn’t talk or acknowledge each other. She looked like trash. Like, bad girl too-much eyeliner and all that. She disappeared about half way through the year. (Not kidnapped. Or maybe, I really have no idea.)
Took me a lot of years to realize she made her own bed, and it wasn’t my fault she broke the rules and sucked at school.
tl;dr – Ratted a girl out, felt [bad] about it.
Ps Just realized I’m going to my reunion next week. Might see her there.
Update: She did not show up at the reunion. She was not in the yearbook either.
Image source: eeyoreofborg
#48
Through inaction, yes.
Long story short, they had submitted a credit application which would have helped their business stay afloat. They were declined.
They weren’t hard declined though, they could have gotten approved if they a certain amount of liquid capital, or could put an additional asset towards collateral.
Or, since my business had a great relationship with the bank, we could have given the word and they would have taken a gamble on the guy.
I knew the guy, I knew the banker, I knew the banker would personally be putting his neck on the line for this guy.
I knew the guy was in a bad situation due to no fault of his own, he was a great guy, but the odds of him paying the loan back were very slim, and the banker would have been severely reprimanded, maybe, for allowing the loan to go through.
What did I do?
I called the customer, and apologized to him, telling him his loan was unable to be approved, and that he’d be receiving a letter in the mail explaining why in the next few weeks.
In order to keep his pay roll up to date, he sold off one of his critical assets, which he had a loan against, and is using that money to both pay his employees, and pay off the monthly payment, which is illegal.
I made the right call, but any day now he’s going to go under, I just heard that his checks have started bouncing, and the holder of the loan on the sold asset found out it was sold.
He’s going to go under.
If I had helped him get the loan to get the new asset, he would have had much higher cash flow, and never would have sold the asset that he did. He wouldn’t be an industry leader, but he’d be afloat, and his employees would all still have a job.
So, I didn’t directly ruin him, circumstances did, but through inaction I allowed him to fail.
Image source: AFTER_THAT_LION_DUDE
#49
I don’t know if I was the reason their life was ruined but in a way I feel guilty.
This guy and his friend lied about something that I did that they said I didn’t do which resulted in a patient crashing. I went back through the chart and the one guy didn’t even see the patient til four hours after his shift started.
Anyways my boss wasn’t the greatest either and took the side of the two guys who were lying even though I showed evidence of them lying. I had also called Ombudsman on the place as I had gone through the channels about ants and a patient and nothing was being done. So, I think it was more of them wanting to get rid of me.
I got super pissed and I don’t know why I did it but I said, “I curse you on the word of . I curse you, and I curse you, and I curse you. I quit.”
I’m not religious either so I don’t know why I did it.
Within that week my bosses house burned down and he lost everything. The one guy who lied about me got busted for lying and lost his license permanently. The other guy who had backed him up had a major MI, was on a ventilator for six months before he finally died.
I had gone in to visit one of my friends during lunch and all the RT’s that were there asked me what did I do. Some of them had heard me curse them and had thought it was funny before all went down on them.
Probably just coincidence but man I was really pissed off that day. Anyways, I doubt I had anything to do with it but I still find it odd that all three of them had some pretty [messed up stuff] happen to them all in the same week.
Image source: Kitzinger1
#50
My friend was getting kicked out of school for getting caught drinking too many times. His parents were preparing to come pick him up.
I had a meeting with the Dean for other reasons and at the end explained my friend was the hardest working person I knew. He had learning disabilities and would literally study from the second he got out of class until 1am just to pull Cs and a few Bs and then go out and party hard for a couple hours.
I was able to convince the dean that he was the most worthy person I knew to be there in the mix of all of us partying like crazy.
I got a call a few months later that my friend was missing. They found that he blacked out in a creek and drowned in 3 inches of water on his way back to the dorm.
I can’t take much responsibility for that, but it [messes] me up. In a moment of assertiveness and courage I fought for my friend and put him on a path that caused him to [perish] a different day.
I shook the deans hand at his funeral and we both just kind of stared at each other for a second. Like no matter the intentions, we did this.
Image source: khaominer
#51
My best friend fell in love with me. We were both young teenagers and I had no idea how to handle it, so I freaked out and avoided for a month (though I did try to call her to sort it out a few times, it just never got through). I found out later that she tried to [end her life] because I was avoiding her, but she didn’t pull it off.
Image source: ToErrDivine
#52
I ruined the happiest day of my best friend’s life. I injured myself at her wedding and then proceeded to make use of the open bar to numb the pain as only an Irish person can. There was a whole series of awful events(-I can elaborate if you want) which included disturbing their wedding night.
4 years later I still cringe and beat myself up for it. I was asked to leave the country immediately and I never spoke to my best friend again.
Image source: theworldismylobster
#53
I left my family.
I was being groomed to be my grandmother’s caretaker after living with her since being a kid. My older brother had already moved out and decidedly avoided any type of responsibility, my uncles were MIA enough to stay out, and I was a young 20-something that felt trapped.
It’s not like I just upped and left, I spent a lot of time considering things, and after my mother died and I had to do pretty much everything (wrote obituary, found a funeral home and planned, got her cremated, arranged it all) at 23, I decided I wasn’t interested in staying connected with any of these people and I was miserable. I was paying rent to my grandmother and needing to ask permission to have a relationship with another adult. I was expected to stay at home as often as possible, but she was in good enough health that I also had to go out whenever and wherever she went out.
I had some rough patches, but my life is great, now. I mean, I don’t love my job, but I’m making things work out on my own.
I don’t really know how they’re doing. I know some of my grandmother’s friends have since passed away (I sent flowers without a card), but I only knew because of a passive aggressive text from my brother. I never responded, and I have received other similar messages (ala, I hate you! Come back and help us clean up this mess that we aren’t used to handling because you know how to do this stuff!) but they eventually stopped. I can’t imagine what their lives are like now, and I don’t care to. But I know they’d say I ruined it by forcing them to share the responsibilities instead of handling it myself.
Image source: brandnamenerd
#54
In 6th grade the weird white kid was in the back of the class with powdered chalk claiming it was flammable and was trying to set the school on fire. He also super glued a chair on the ground. I got up and told on him but due to having the reputation of the kid who always gets detentions the teacher just shrugged it off. I told this chick to tell on him and of course she believed her and he got caught. He got expelled and went to some troubled school and he put on a ton of weight.
Image source: anon
#55
A co-worker, on her day off, brought into work my baby shower gift. She stepped off the curb, was hit by a car, and was crippled for life.
Image source: Respiratory
#56
I hate myself every time I think about it this one: I’m a photographer, and I get pretty animated and enthusiastic during my portrait sessions (it’s who I am, and it tends to make my clients feel more at ease when I’m raving about how awesome they are and how gorgeous their pictures are going to look). So I’m [photographing] an engagement session one day, and it’s going really well, and as I snapped off one with an amazing backdrop and the perfect light I shouted, “This is the kind of photo your grandkids are going to go CRAZY over!” As this is leaving my mouth I remember that the woman suffers from infertility and is very sensitive about it. You can pretty much see her heart break between one image and the next.
Ah, then at their wedding I was lining everyone up for family portaits, and I turned to an older lady with a sour look on her face and said, “And you’re the groom’s … grandmother?” Nope, that was his ma.
TL;DR: Shut up and just take the picture.
Image source: anon
#57
I was complaining to a buddy about this girl that had a stalker-ish crush on me. She would wait for me outside my dorm room, come in unannounced when the door was unlocked, etc. So my friend sat and listened to me for a while talk about how this girl was obsessed with me and how I just had no interest in her. I later found out that my friend was secretly in love with this girl and desperately trying to get her attention.
Image source: Salacious-
#58
I was very drunk at a party with a lot of close friends when I loudly asked a girl what valtrex was when a bottle fell out of her purse and rolled across the room to my feet. The look on her face still makes me feel bad.
Image source: MrSanford
#59
I work for a collection agency, i ruin people’s day without even wanting to. :(
Edit: Everytime i mention i work for a collection agency i get tons of questions, remarks, etc… There needs to be a IAmA Debt Collector AMA.
Image source: ginfish
#60
I’m notoriously bad at compliments. I once told a woman how nice her body hair looked, which was 100% true. She was partially wet and just glistening in the sun, and thats how I complimented her.
Later my buddy told me she had a hormonal condition that makes her have more than usual body hair (I could not tell, she looks normal) and is extremely self-conscious about it.
TL;DR said the worst compliment of all time.
Image source: DollarBrand
#61
I accidentally stepped on a girl’s cosplay dress when I went to an anime convention a couple years ago. I felt horrible that whole weekend knowing I ripped this young women’s dress that she worked so hard on and to show off for this one weekend. If you are a out there somewhere…I’m sorry!
Image source: LemonCoughDrop
#62
I’m pretty sure I got a gas station attendant fired when I accidentally sprayed several gallons of gasoline all over myself, my car, the ground and him. I was a fairly new driver and I convinced him that I could pump it myself (in Oregon, the attendant must do it). My car tank was finicky and the handle got stuck. When I tried to pull out the nozzle, gasoline went shooting everywhere. His eyes, my eyes, our clothes – all drenched in gasoline. After flushing out our eyes with water in the bathroom sink, I had to sign a piece of paper that said that it was my fault, not the attendant’s. He probably got fired anyway. I still feel so [bad] and embarrassed about it. Jesus, I’ve never told anyone about that. I need a drink.
Image source: anon
#63
When I was a teen, I was watching our next door neighbor’s house for the weekend and watching her pets. I left a note that said “Everything went great and noone called”.
You see, I spelled “no one” wrong. Unknown to me, several years back she had escaped a violent marriage to a man named “Noonie”. My letter made her think he had tracked her down and she rightfully panicked.
Image source: CptCreep
#64
Was talking with a fiend of mine with a mutual friend joking about all the “women” he slept with. Trying to figure out who he slept with first and his now wife overheard and put it together that he had cheated on her prior to us knowing they were already dating. Whoops.
Image source: tuhgttg
#65
I used to work with marginalised young people. One boy I was working with was accused of exposing himself to a couple of girls in the group. I felt like he didn’t but was pressed by my boss into expelling him for the school. I heard from him recently. He has not been able to finish school, hold down a job, is a compulsive gambler and alcoholic. I feel responsible for him and feel like I was not able to give him the opportunity he deserved.
Image source: Fun_For_Guill
#66
I used to work at this mexican food joint and one day we were out of avocados and hence out of guacamole. this one guy took it pretty rough.
Image source: tetrix_
#67
I wouldn’t say ruined but I probably did accidently scar him for life. During an art period in third grade, my friend and I were just laughing nonstop at how funny our pictures were. He stood up to show-off his hilariously drawn picture of something (I forgot since this was around 20 years ago). I had the brightest idea of holding a pencil upright and he basically sat down perfectly onto it and the next thing I knew, he was screaming for his mom and there was a pencil stuck in his butt. Surprising we were still friends, until he moved to another school but i don’t think he ever felt comfortable sitting down anymore.
tl;dr friend sat down on a pencil that I put upright on his chair and pierced his butt.
Image source: eijiro
#68
I don’t know about ruin, but certainly change.
I kissed a girl at a bar one night, we exchanged numbers and that was that. A week later I was at the same bar and there’s this wasted guy acting huffy and his friends were telling him to chill out. Didn’t really think about it until I saw him walking towards me yelling gibberish. He reached out to grab me, and at the same time he walked into bar stool and I raised my arm fairly quickly to keep my distance and he tumbles to the floor. His friends thought I punched him, they ran over and apologize and got him out of there. Turns out the girl was his girlfriend and they broke up the day I hooked up with her, but they had since gotten back together. She then ended things after hearing he tried to attacked me. So this guy thinks I hooked up with his girl, ultimately ended their relationship and knocked him out in front of his friends. The dude hates me, I don’t even know his name.
Image source: IAmTheDayman1
#69
Being a drill sergeant, it’s my job to make sure sub-par soldiers don’t get in to the Army. Not that basic is hard, but some people just don’t deserve to be soldiers. I’ve seen more than a few 18-20 year old kids get kicked out that have nothing left at home minus a fast food job. I don’t feel bad about it, but sometimes you have to look at them and wonder what the hell they’re going to do now.
Image source: anon
#70
In third grade I (and another friend) decided to stop playing with a kid who was being a total [jerk] to us. This one simple thing resulted in him having a burning hatred for me that he still holds for me in 10th grade over me “ruining” his friendship with my friend (who was the other kid who stopped hanging out with him). He seems to believe that it is my fault and not his for the friendship he [messed up], and only in the last 2 years have I understood that this person is a total phycopath/sociopath who happens to have a burning hatred against me, he has no friends and his life may quite literally be focused on blaming me for all of his problems…
Image source: anon
#71
In middle school, I became best friends with a really interesting girl who was a year older than me. She had nerdy interests and a silly sense of humor, so we got along quite well. When she moved to high school, she started hanging out with the anime club and got REALLY interested into yaoi and yuri manga. Eventually, she started hitting on me and would say things like, “if we were to live together…” Anyways, I was naive at 13 and thought it was just friendly hugs and sleepovers.
The day I told her I had my first boyfriend, she practically kicked me out of her house. She even gave him a huge packet of diary entries and IM conversations with her friends, and even included a letter to him saying I led her on and I was a liar. My parents had to be the ones to tell her family she was a lesbian and that she had written horrible things about me.
She continued to hang out with that group of people and changed completely from the person I knew. Throughout the rest of high school, she would pretend like I didn’t exist. Even when I came up to congratulate her on her graduation, she walked right past me.
TL;DR My naive 13 year old self “led on” my best friend and emotionally devastated her when I got a boyfriend.
Image source: haferflocken
#72
Working at a restaurant called x inn, had a lady call one week before christmas, wanting to book rooms for 6 people. I had to tell her that even if we were called an inn, we didnt have any rooms. She was furious and claimed that I had ruined chrismas for her and her family even when I gave her phone numbers for 3 other local hotels.
Image source: MissSmoking
#73
If you’re the parent of a teenager, you probably ruin their lives every day of the week.
Image source: danrennt98
#74
No, your child cannot visit the museum by himself. No, you may not touch, try on, fake duel with the objects. No, you may not combine this coupon with all of those to get in for less than free. From their reactions,I would guess that I ruin people’s lives on a daily basis!
Image source: knitkitty
#75
Went out with a woman I met from a dating site. One date – we hit it off as far as humor and such goes, and ended up sitting on the curb chatting until 2AM.
But I wasn’t feeling a romantic connection. At the end of it, I said, “so what do you think”, and I *swear* we both said, “naaaaaaah”.
We went on to become friends IRL. Hung out a lot, made lots of funnies on FB, etc.
Anyway, so like a year goes by, and I mention on FB that I’m glad for a few things in my life, including her as a friend. So she PMs me, and it goes sorta like this:
her: “hey, you know that whole ‘naaaah'” thing?
me: “yeah”
her: “not really”
me: “???”
her: “I’m crazy about you.”
me: “lol haha hilarious”
her: …
her: …
me: “wait… you’re serious”
her: “yes”
So what can I do? I just say I’m so sorry. She basically wants to not be in any communication for a while, and I understand.
Over the ensuing months, we get back into communication, and even hang out a few times. Finally, she says she can’t do this, that all her plans about how we were going to be together and do all this stuff just won’t leave her alone, and just says it’s best if we don’t see each other.
I totally understand – I thought she was over me, as she’d had a boyfriend or two in the interim. But anyway…
So we still joke on FB, and over the last year since, she’s clearly gotten very, very depressed, hated her life, etc. Nothing much I could do.
Luckily, she just changed jobs, and seems in better spirits, but I feel I really put a big dent in her hopes and dreams. And I really, seriously miss the friendship.
**tl;dr: I am a meat popsicle**.
Image source: the_red_scimitar
#76
I didn’t like a status on facebook which, to my understanding, meant world wide starvation and lack of water in africa.
Image source: Karmaworks
#77
I created an elaborate slew of stories. They became reality when my friend and I entered a full time LARP thing. When she tried to get me to run away during school so we could go to a parallel universe, I said, “Don’t you know it’s all just a game?” She is still in depression, because the reality she had gone to for comfort, had disappeared.
Image source: Ninjacat1337
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