I don't wish I could go back to the day before I met him and tell myself not to follow up on the this contact (mutual friend who introduced us).
I do wish I could go back to the day last fall when I called him to ask him a simple question and he attacked me over the phone, accusing me of saying something that "might" have "given him away" to somebody IF somebody had been listening in (no one was; he was just paranoid from years before that, in other circumstances in his life).
Instead of apologizing (for something I hadn't even said) and saying I hadn't done it intentionally (I hadn't actually done it at all, not in the real world, but only in his paranoid delusion), I wish I had laughed out loud over the phone at him and said, "What in the world are you talking about?" I wish I had gotten angry back at him.
He probably still would have dumped me. And I had learned the summer before that trying to defend myself (i.e., tell him the facts instead of letting him accuse me of something totally unreal) just made him really really angry.
But I wish I had been angry back. I have a quick and bad temper so I almost never give in to it. I almost never talk back to anyone who gets mad at me.
I just wish I had ripped this guy a good one and stood up to his anger and laughed at his accusations like the total delusions they were.
Just because I never yell at someone doesn't mean I don't know how to. I can say VERY hurtful things. I just don't, because I don't like to be hurt. But maybe I could have blasted him with some common sense and gotten through to him.