That’s exactly how my brother and I are. We interact when we’re forced to at family occasions, and both prefer to keep it that way.
Older sister, 4.5 years older. Not a chance in hell. She’s just too mundane.
Younger sister, 16 years younger? Like gangbusters if we could get past the age barrier.
My little brother is one of my best friends, and it makes me sad to think that if we weren’t siblings, we’d probably never meet. We have completely different interests and lifestyles (I’m the moody, artsy, over-scheduled New Yorker, he’s the affable jock who lives out in the boonies communing with nature and Xtreme sports) – I can’t even imagine where we would cross paths! If we were coworkers or something like that, we’d probably get along great but not really have much of a relationship beyond work.
My brother is five years older than me. I’m a little nerdy, love to read, but just kind of a ‘regular’ girl, he was Mr. Popular in high school and he’s kind of a crabby bastard. In fact, one of my best friends is his girlfriend and I have no idea how she puts up with him. We don’t have much in common, so no we would not be friends. We don’t hang out much unless my friend/his gf is involved. The older we get the more we get along but we don’t go out of our ways to hang out now even.
My sister, yes. Probably not super close friends, we’re very different – but we get along well enough now to vacation together.
My brother, no way – I haven’t talked to the guy in over two years.
It’s unlikely we would ever have met; although we do have some friends independently in common (his fiancée is a friend of a friend of the ex of a friend of mine… it’s really much more likely than that, I promise), we don’t have much in common at all or move in any of the same social circles.
And that would be too bad, because he’s a sweetheart.
It’s hard for me to say because I think a lot of my likes, dislikes and interests were a result of me following my brother.
So, while we get along like two peas in a pod right now (we’re 28 and 30) and always have, I’m not sure we’d like the same music, felt the same way about sports or had the same sense of humor if we didn’t grow up in the same house.
Frankly, I owe a lot of who I am to how my brother molded me to be.
We also grew up on different educational tracks - I was in accelerated classes and he was in tutoring. I joined some clubs and he didn’t. So we would have only run into eachother in high school band. But would I have been in band if it wasn’t for him? If I was, would I have been in the low brass section? Maybe not.
I truly love my brother, tho, and would miss him as a friend or a brother if he wasn’t in my life. Sad to think that he might not have been in my life had we not had the same parents!
I’d say yes. My younger brother’s a pretty decent guy (despite everything I did to him in childhood, for which I am most sincerely [del]not[/del] sorry).
My youngest sister, definitely. I can never be mad at her because as Bender says, “I can never stay mad at what is essentially me! I love me!” And I don’t think it’s because I shaped her personality–she was six years younger than me, and for the first 17 years of her life, I basically treated her like a vaguely annoying pet. Now she lives with me (we go to the same school) and it’s great having her around. I bet if we met randomly somehow (and I have no doubt we’d meet online. We’re in the same fandoms and geek out over the same things) we’d probably be great friends.
I don’t know about my other sister, though.
If my parents’ house exploded (you know, that place where all of my siblings now live) it might take me a few weeks to notice.
The one and only time any of my sibs ever contacted me about anything was when my sister wanted to visit New York and stay at my place, nearly 4 years ago.
I’m the older sister of two brothers. They are my great friends now and I think if I met them as non-siblings we would be friends anyway, though no where near as good, because I simply don’t cultivate men friends outside of coupledom (which hasn’t really occurred to me until just now as I started writing this answer).
One nice thing about being their big sister is that they often seem oddly innocent to me for grown men (they are 28 and 34), a side of themselves I’m sure they rarely reveal.
If we just met, I would be startled to know that anyone had so duplicated my own TV watching habits.
I think my sister and I would get along a LOT better if we weren’t related. As it is, we do not speak - I cut her off as a family member a couple years ago after one too many bizarre temper tantrum. She’s living in a fantasy world where the rest of the family is out to get her and ruin her life. (In reality, our parents are pretty cool. I get along with them great.) It’s too bad, because we actually have really similar tastes in music, books, politics, etc.
But I’m six years older than she is and it’s unlikely we’d ever meet otherwise.
As I anticipated, a good amount of people don’t know, same as myself. It’s a tough question, being that you have to move that veil of familyness out of the way to make a decision. It goes to show how strong family is sometimes. Keep’em coming, I love reading your responses.
I have one brother that I refuse to have anything to do with, one brother that we talk occasionally and if we worked together, I’m sure we’d be friends. Two sisters that I’m not sure we’d be friends now. One has become just a little too Christian, but if I knew her before I would still be friends with her.
Not likely. We move in entirely different circles and have entirely different interests. While we aren’t estranged now, I see him only a couple times a year at my parents’ and seldom think about him between those times. Don’t know his phone number. Don’t know his address.
I don’t think my brother and I would be friends at all. He is 5 and a half years younger than me and we have almost nothing in common. He is one of the people that I went out of my way to avoid in high school and college and I think he probably feels the same about me. I wish we could be closer but we are very, very different people and now we live 1500 miles away from each other since I moved to New York so I don’t see it happening.
I’m the oldest of three girls–my middle sister is cool, I like her and we enjoy talking to each other but seldom make the effort to get in touch. We have very different lifestyles and I think I’m a bit extreme for her…
Youngest sister, couldn’t be friends with a gun to my head. She’s a classic youngest child, spoiled and entitled and annoying as hell. Worse, though, she’s stupid and pig ignorant with no drive to correct either condition. Of course, she doesn’t have even an iota of self awareness to make her cognizant of her abysmally jejune condition–so it must be that I’m a bitch that I don’t want to have anything to do with her. :rolleyes:
My opinion is that friends are family you choose.
My sister and I didn’t get along when we were teenagers (I’m two years older than her). We have a much improved relationship once we no longer lived in the same house (and later, not in the same province).
But even though we get along better now, I don’t think we’d be friends if we weren’t related. We can have a good time during long phone conversations or short visits (a few days), but if we’re together for a more extended period of time then we really know how to punch each other’s buttons and pet peeves and then start debating/arguing/insults.
I have a brother who’s a year younger than me. When we were in high school, we hung around the same crowd (the potheads) and spent so much time together people thought we were dating. If we weren’t related we probably would have dated. Once. Ewww.
Anyway, I’ve changed a lot since then. Him, not so much. He’s a very sweet-natured and funny guy and all the sleazy people who take advantage of his generosity are lucky to have him, but…
He doesn’t approve of some things I’ve done, I don’t approve of some things he’s done. It cancels out. I like him and he likes me, but we live in the same town and never talk or see each other except at holidays. We’re both busy with our own stuff, but we’d “be there” for each other, should there be a need.
Oh, you said would we be friends? Gee, I guess not.
If we weren’t brothers, it’s doubtful that we’d ever have met. He’s the straightest person I know, and would be happy spending his entire life watching sports on tv. I’m totally gay, and nothing bores me more than sports. We don’t even look at all alike; to look at us, you’d never guess that we were at all related. It’s like each of us has always been an only child.
But it’s interesting that we do have some strange, trivial things in common.