The Objectively Worst Decisions Made In 'Boy Meets World'

In the infamous episode "Heartbreak Cory" (Season 5, episode 14), Cory sprains his ankle getting off the bus for a class ski trip. While Topanga, Shawn, and Angela are all hitting the slopes, Cory hits it off with Lauren (Linda Cardellini), an employee at the ski lodge. They spend the entire evening talking, and even when his ankle is better, he pretends it isn't to spend more time with Lauren. Feelings develop, and Lauren kisses him. 

Cory cheats on Topanga a number of times throughout the series, but this is the most egregious. Even after he confesses to Topanga that he stayed in to talk to Lauren, he leaves out the fact that they kissed. Topanga finds out the hard way: from a love letter Lauren writes and sneaks into Cory's bag before they leave. 

In "If You Can't Be With The One You Love" (Season 5, episode 18), Cory convinces Shawn to drink with him as he mourns his recent breakup with Topanga. At first, Shawn declines, but Cory is so insistent that he needs to not be let down that Shawn caves and does it. After leaving a party, the two are busted by the cops, and Cory is scared straight. But Shawn isn't. He starts having outbursts in school and admits to Cory's he's been drinking "all week and no one has noticed."

No, Cory wasn't privy to Shawn's family history at this point - when the boys are in college, we find out that Shawn and Jack's biological father, Chet, physically hurt Jack's mom while drunk. Sure, it would have been helpful to know this at the onset, but if a friend is adamantly saying they don't want to do something, especially something illicit like teen drinking, you lay off. 

The pressures teenagers face concerning their life after high school is considerable, which is something Shawn grapples with in "Cult Fiction" (Season 4, episode 21). Mr. Turner urges Shawn to think about his future, and when a classmate tells him about a group for "lost souls," he looks into it. The man running the "group" Philip Macke, is actually a cult leader, and he has Shawn wrapped around his finger after only minutes at The Centre. It takes a near-tragedy - Mr. Turner getting into a terrible motorcycle accident - for Shawn to see clearly what The Centre truly was. 

Joining a cult is a bad decision for anyone, and Shawn was looking for ways to avoid an impending, uncertain future. Spotting cults isn't always easy, and unfortunately, Shawn was in just a delicate enough of a mindset to be roped in. 

In "The War" (Season 7, episode 15), Cory, Shawn, and Topanga find themselves in a prank-off against Jack, Rachel, and Angela. The two groups have generally campy pranks - one of which involves dripping honey and a bear - but the one that crosses the line is when Shawn and Cory make a life-sized poster of an intimate photo Rachel gave Jack back when they were dating. They even posted it in a public place.

The entire group completely unravels and loses trust in one another. Rachel can't believe that Jack would share something so private. Angela learns that Shawn has also shown off pictures of her. Topanga is upset with the boys for not including her in the prank, which she would have stopped. Although the image was somewhat chaste, given the show's primetime slot, it's still unnerving.

In "Wake Up, Little Cory" (Season 2, episode 7), Topanga and Cory are paired together for a project in Mr. Turner's class. The assignment is inspired by Much Ado About Nothing, and Mr. Turner has students pair up and video interview each other about their feelings on intimacy and love. Mind you, they're still basically tweens at this point. Cory and Topanga spend all night in the AV room editing their material, and when they're caught in the morning by the janitor, the boys at school assume this means the two went all the way.

When classmates start telling Cory he's the man, he doesn't shut down the idea. In fact, he likes the attention, so he lets the rumor spread. Cory was more concerned with a little ego inflation that he completely neglected to think of what this would mean to Topanga. She finds out and is humiliated. In her (completely justified) anger, she tells Cory they are no longer friends. Of course, she does end up forgiving him, but the two weren't even dating at this point, which makes Cory's lie-by-omission somehow even cringier. 

After a relaxing and extravagant honeymoon, Cory and Topanga come back to a harsher reality than they originally left. Topanga told Angela that she would move out, and Angela took that as in "after I am married," so when they make it back to Philadelphia, all of Topanga's stuff is on the floor, and Shawn has moved in instead. And since the two just spent an exorbitant amount on their Hawaii honeymoon, the college newlyweds have nowhere to stay. 

After Cory's dad refuses to let them stay with them, even though Cory practically begs him, Alan says that they got themselves into this mess, and now they have to deal with it. Feels like a mess that could have been easily avoided if they had put off their honeymoon or done something a little more low-key. Shoot - at the very least, they could have thought about this before their wedding day. Instead, they are stuck in the married dorms, which are full of weird tenants and cockroaches.