I have two biological cousins, and two stepcousins. I haven’t seen one bio cousin since the kid was 6 or 7 (he’s 15 now), and I’ve never met the second (understandable, as my uncle didn’t learn of his existence until quite recently). I’m friends on Facebook with one of the stepcousins, but the other one (who’s my age) seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. I’d look him up on Facebook too, but I can’t remember his last name.
It always amazed me when my friends were all “I’m seeing my 20+ cousins this weekend,” because mine are so few and far between.
Two first cousins on my mother’s side of the family ( mother’s sister - both older ), originally five on my father’s side ( one of my father’s sisters - three older, two younger ). I was close-ish to three of the seven ( though my favorite cousin tragically died very young ), but was at least loosely sociable with all but one of them who was much younger, as well as all of my assorted aunts and uncles ( except one uncle by marriage who was kinda an obvious douchebag, even to my very young self ). Used to spend part of every summer with virtually all of them as a very young kid, but that declined sharply before I entered my early teens. In part because we were by this point on on opposite coasts, but more significantly because I now spent the bulk of my summers shuttling between now divorced parents.
I haven’t seen any of them in perhaps…25 years? Give or take. And I stay in mostly indirect contact these days. Still, they were generally good folks. We’re not close anymore, but with pretty minor exceptions I have mostly fond childhood memories of them.
This. I have a very good relationship with a female cousin that is rather like an ideal, literary big brother/little sister relationship. She was a little girl when I was in college - now she’s in college. My mother would like me to spend some more time with her, but I never get around to it.
I have four first cousins. I haven’t seen any of them in ten years. Growing up, we met a few times, but my dad and his brothers live far apart, and didn’t make getting together a priority.
I have a couple of second cousins with whom I’m slightly better acquainted, but still, as adults we don’t know each other well enough to even meet up at weddings.
I have four first cousins on my mom’s side, but we’re really not close to that side of the family so I can’t say i know them well at all.
On my dad’s side I have another 4 cousins that we’re pretty close with, though they are quite younger then my and my sisters. We also have two second cousins (my dad’s cousins kids) that we’re fairly friendly with, but again there’s a big age gap.
Another bunch of second cousins down in Virginia and in California, who we see every once in a while (three or four of them?)
A step cousin in Florida who’s married and a mom already.
Lot’s and lots of first cousins once removed (my dads cousins), but they’re all much older and i can barely keep names straight.
So, lot 'o cousins, but don’t really have a relationship with most of them beyond a blood tie.
I saw quite a bit of my cousins as I was growing up, especially those closest to me in age. I haven’t seen any of the cousins on my father’s side for almost 40 years, ever since my father was declared The Official Black Sheep of the Family. Pity, I liked most of them.
I haven’t seen my mother’s nephews and niece for about 20 years but that was more a general growing up, growing apart, moving away sort of thing rather than a family schism. It’s a pity really - I’d like to have kept in contact with more of them, even the paternal side, because I have no brothers or sisters.
I am not really close to mine. My father was the youngest of three by about 8 years and my mom was 13 years older than her only sister. As a consequence, I am like 10 years younger than the youngest cousin on my dad’s side and 23 years older than the oldest on my mom’s side. I thought my older cousins were cool but I can only remember seeing them a couple of times before they moved out of their parents’ houses and now we are spread about the country a good bit. For my younger cousins, whom I see a bit more, I am more like an uncle than a cousin.
I have one cousin who’s just a touch younger than my brother and I. When we were all little, we lived far apart and would only see each other during summer vacation. We’d really look forward to it, but when we actually got together, Cousin would always be the kid who played a little too rough, took a joke a little too far, and somehow managed to break your favorite toy.
Later, we all went to the same high school. By this time, Cousin was a jock and we were stoners, so we didn’t socialize much at school. Then Cousin started trying to kiss me whenever we were alone. One day I had had enough and defended myself with a kitchen knife. He only got a scratch, but left me alone after that.
Now we are all grown and only see each other in family situations around the holidays. We keep our interactions nice and shallow, and our kids play together.
How does this break down (i.e., how many aunts/uncles do you have and how many kids do they each have)?
I have ten first cousins, two on my dad’s side and eight on my mom’s side. The two on my dad’s side live in Italy and I’ve seen them maybe 4-5 times in my life. They’re good people and I get along with my female cousin very well when I visit (her brother is just a lot older than I am and we have few things to socialize about), but I’ve hardly ever seen them.
The eight cousins on my mom’s side all live either in Las Vegas or Salt Lake City (we live in the Philadelphia area), and we used to see each other at most once a year when we’d visit out there in the summertime as children. But we have nothing in common. I don’t really like any of them enough to be friends with (we get along for chitchat at family dinners but that’s it). My brother was pretty close to one of our cousins when we were children, but since we’ve grown up our cousin has turned into a very different person and is hard to relate to.
And I’ll put it this way: our cousins think my brother and I are “weird” because we have master’s degrees. They’ve used that word: weird. We just don’t relate.
It’s all about proximity. The two that I lived two hours from growing up I know the best. My family would visit theirs many times each year for days at a time. They were also my same age.
The others were too far away to see much then. I live minutes away now and I hardly ever see them.
Oddly, it’s the one that I visited least growing up that I hang out with most today. She’s practically my wife’s best friend now, thanks to a common love of Disneyland.
I’m close to one of my cousins, and have contact with another maybe once a year. Other than that I mostly ignore them. With one exception, I’d go out of my way to visit the cousins on my father’s side if I were in their area. The one exception sort of creeps me out, in a kid-from-Deliverance sort of way, although I don’t think he’s really a bad guy.
I find most of the cousins on my mother’s side to be obnoxious.
I have one cousin on my mother’s side. We’re best of friends (or would be, if we didn’t live 2000 miles apart).
I have … ~15 … on my dad’s side, most of whom I haven’t seen in years and probably wouldn’t recognize. A couple are friends on Facebook, but we don’t communicate much.
I have tons of cousins, as I’ve mentioned here before. Seven double-first* cousins (one of whom is dead); about thirteen or fourteen first cousins; and more second cousins, first-cousins once removed, and so forth that I care to count. Growing up, I spent a lot of time with the DFCs; they were more like slightly-inferior siblings than cousins. My siblings were also closer to our other first cousins than is average – certainly closer than I am.
As an adult, I remain fond of selected cousins, but not the general group. That’s partly because there’s too damn many of them, and partly because of personality conflicts. But I count two of them (both DFCs) as very close.
*Double-first cousins means that our mothers were sisters who married a pair of brothers.
I had a bunch of cousins growing up, but they all lived several hours or more away so I only saw them a couple times a year. We had fun together, though, and we still keep in touch (more or less) through Facebook.
My kids, on the other hand, live 1/2 mile from some of their cousins. They see each other almost every day. It’s like having an extra set of siblings.
I have 18 first cousins on my dad’s side (so counting me, my brother and sister there were 21 of us growing up.) Not a huge difference in age…oldest is turning 40 this year, youngest is 23 (I’m 28, so low-side of the middle.) We’ve always been pretty close. My dad’s brothers and sisters all still live in the same town they grew up in, as do many of my cousins. Most of the rest live ‘one town over.’ The only ones not within a one-town radius are me (a whopping 35 miles away,) my sister who lives a couple states away, and a cousin who is an officer in the navy and moves around.
Other than the navy cousin, I’ll see all of them (and the spouses and kids for those that have them,) multiple times a year. We’ll all be together for the 4th at my aunt and aunt’s places (two aunts live next door to each other, so ever since I can remember we’ve had a huge party in their backyards for the 4th of July.
There’s also been an average of a wedding a year for the past several years, and we try to do a big thing on X-Mas eve, though it’s hard to find a house that’s big enough for everyone lately.
Man do I have the cousins. I have never counted them up, but it is over 30 and probably over 35. I have never met several of them.
Mom was one of 7 children, and Dad one of 4. All of my aunts and uncles had at least three kids, and most more than that…6 in one case.
My parents were not the youngest of their siblings, but had me very late, when my mom was 44. Of all my cousins, on both sides, I am the youngest, though there is one only a year older and about 4 more within 5 years. The rest are at least 10 years older than me. 2 had died, (both drowned) and 4 of my cousins had kids before I was born, and far more than that were in college or not living at home, so that is why I never met some of them. Some of my cousins had retired by the time I was 30.
3 first cousins on my mom’s side. 2 of them were (are) cute chicks, so it was fun to go to parties as teens and see who was interested in either them or me. Seriously, bringing a fake date really opens up people’s mouths, at least, it did for teenagers. No kissing cousin stuff, tho. (Altho I still think my brother had a crush on one them back then.) Lived about 500 miles away, so we saw each other summers and most major holidays. Not much involved now, diff priorities. My male cousin just recently died in an accident. Hadn’t seen him in almost a decade, family issues, ya know? All of us were within 2 to 5 years in age of each other.
Dad’s family was estranged from us for most of our lives. Just now having a bit of a relationship with one of my male cousins from that side. We grew up almost alike (genes or similar circumstances?). All via e-mail and a few phone calls.
My real “family” isn’t related to me at all. Friends sticking closer than a brother.
26 including four deceased, and one “step-cousin”. Had great relationships with all of the ones I knew. There are two on my father’s side that I never met (one since deceased). There are two on my mother’s side that I never met, and one that I’ve met, but wouldn’t recognized if I saw her.