whenever someone’s putting pressure on you to make a difficult important life altering decision, with the stipulation that the decision must be made immediately, RUN AWAY.

Why should I go big when I can go home.

I didn’t have sex with a girl I had a crush on for the longest time.

It didn’t matter a bit in the long run, but it would have been nice.

My USMC recruiting officer didn’t want me to go home and confer with family, but sign the papers right away before I walked out of the office. That’s when I decided he seemed a bit too desperate.

Dozens of stories from vets later (many with TBIs who couldn’t get proper treatment) I engage in counter-recruitment now.

When I had to move out (long, unpleasant story) I had the opportunity to get a nice, cozy appartement with low rent almost immediatly, but during the interview it turned out that they didn’t allow pets and wouldn’t budge, so it wasn’t an option for me and I politely declined.

They still tried to pressure me into signing the rental contract - calling me multiple times a day to ask whether I wanted to rethink my former decision again, eventually giving me a 24 hour deadline and demanding that I sign ASAP or they would pick someone else. That was the point I told them to go F- themselves as I was NOT going to leave my 13 year old tomcat behind or surrender him to a shelter. They didn’t take it well. (…and suddenly they claimed that noone else wanted the appartement and that they desperately needed someone to move in very soon yadda yadda … so much for “we’re going to pick someone else if you don’t sign today”.)

Best decision I’ve made that year. The landlord I have now is a super chill dude and I still have my spoiled furry little bastard with me. I’d rather have lived on the street than leaving a four-legged family member behind.

No idea what became of the other appartement but I pity the people who will have to put up with that passive-aggressive nonsense for lack of alternatives.