The other day I struck up a conversation, about economics of all thing, with a stranger whose political beliefs were quite different from my own. It was a little bit of a teaching opportunity as I introduced him to some new concepts. And while the conversation was respectful and engaging, I kept going over it in my head afterwards, wishing I had phrased certain things in a different way, wishing I had mentioned certain ideas and excluded others, and generally feeling like I did a really poor job of presenting my arguments. Now, I certainly feel better prepared if a similar situation were to arise again. But I had trouble shaking the feelings of "I wish I would have said that…"
Certainly I can refer to these feelings as regret. But I'm wondering if there's a word or idiom in usage that's more specific to this type of scenario?
Best Answer
There's l'esprit de l'escalier ("staircase wit"), which Wikipedia describes as "the predicament of thinking of the perfect reply too late".