TA
Not understanding myself until I was in my 30s.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 November 2023 source ↗
The question
What disappointment has stayed with you longest?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
View all 367 →
Sally Hawkins
British actress
Realising that I wasn't a fairy changeling child and that David Bowie wasn't the fairy king.
Ruth Jones
Welsh actress, producer, and writer
The Guardian’s review of my book.
Vanessa Redgrave
British actress and activist
To lose my fourth baby.
Realising what adulthood is after waiting so long to get here.
More from Tom Allen
View profile →The fear of nightmares.
I once had to sit on a sleigh and pretend to be Bing Crosby for a corporate party. I had to mime to White Christmas over and over again.
I did a corporate gig early in my career, and they opened the buffet in the middle of my set and everybody left.
On holiday in Spain with my family about 20 years ago. Sad, but true.
The greatest athlete we never knew we had.
Never save anything for best.
More on failure & regret
- Who deserves an apology from you, and for what? 209 answers
- If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- What is the harshest thing anyone has said to you? 122 answers
- When were you most embarrassed? 122 answers
- How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? 69 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 35 answers
Also answered this
Archie Panjabi, Julie Delpy, Susan Greenfield, Sara Cox, Kellie Maloney, Philip Treacy
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All failure & regret questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject