Back in 1993, I worked for a school crew that poured urethane on gym floors for the district high schools and junior highs. It was a summer job for me, a way to earn money to go towards the next semester’s tuition. I was the only college kid on this crew of about 5. The rest were high school kids making some money to blow on booze or weed, or both. There was a supervisor over this crew of dipshits, and his name was Richard. Richard was about 35 at the time. He was dour, sour, scowled a whole bunch, called us dipshits and retards, and was a most unpleasant fellow to be around.

One day, right as we were about to take lunch in this sweltering gymnasium, I remember that I was talking with the high school retards, and we were talking about our favorite subject: Pussy.

I remember telling them something along the lines of how I turned down “some chick” because of reasons. I thought I was “smart” and that I was “cool.”

Now our supervisor, Richard, had already begun his lunch. He was eating a bologna sandwich and some chips and shit. He overheard our conversation and he stopped eating, looked up at us, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Never turn down pussy.” He scowled and sneered as he said it.

“Why not?” I said.

“Because you’ll always be one behind.” And with that, Richard went back to scowling and eating his bologna sandwich.

At the time I was 21 and thought I knew it all. The truth was, I had no idea what Richard was talking about. It took me until I was about 35 to understand what he meant.

“You’ll always be one behind.“

I don’t regret the money I didn’t make, I don’t regret the jobs I didn’t take, and I don’t regret the places I haven’t visited. What I regret, what still haunts me to this very day, is the women that I didn’t bang because I was naive, stupid, or both.

I’m not talking about the women that I made a pass at and they told me in one form or another, “thank you, but no thank you.” I’m talking about the women, who in some cases, told me point-blank, that they wanted to fuck me. And stupid me, I didn’t get the message until it was much too late. Too late to take them up on their offer. Too late to say, “Let’s go.” Too late to have another chance because that chance was gone forever.

That’s what I regret.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dwell on it and I certainly don’t beat myself up over it, but it is my one and only regret. Like I said, I don’t regret the one’s that said no, I don’t regret lost job and money opportunities, and I don’t regret the places I haven’t been to. But I do regret not fucking those women when I had the chance.

I was talking with Swurv, Dante, Mish, Marty, and I think Jack Napier was still there too when “The One Behind Club” came up in our conversation. Don’t ask me how exactly it came up, but it did. All the guys had a gut, visceral reaction when I said it and what it was. All of them paused when I told them what Richard told me so long ago. All of them belong to The One Behind Club. It’s how Dante’s discord server got a name change.

I decided to write this post and hopefully you guys will see it and unfortunately, I’m sure far too many of you will relate to it. Far too many of you will be members of the One Behind Club. Can you “fix it?” No. If you passed up on a sure thing, a sure lay, you’re always going to be one behind. But learn from it. Don’t pass up on a good time again.

I have had a lot of sex with a lot of different women over the years and not one of them was “bad.” It’s like pizza. There’s no such thing as “bad pizza.” Just some better than others. Same with sex. I’ve never had a bad sexual experience, just some better than others.

You want to pass up a sure thing because of your morals, virtues, or something that someone else told you was “the way to go,” you will always be one behind. And trust me, you’ll think about it at some point, and you’ll regret it. Even if you never say it out loud to another human being, you’ll still regret it. You’ll always wonder. And it’s that wonder that becomes an itch that you can never quite reach, you can never scratch.