Not necessarily, and that’s why I’m glad to have them as family.
What I mean is… We get along great, we have many things in common, but… We don’t socialize in the same circles. I would’ve never met my brother if he weren’t my brother. Not because of him being a douchebag (quite the opposite), but because his social circle is definitely different from mine.
I adore granny… But how could I’ve had been friends with granny, had she not been family? I usually don’t hang out with people 60 years older than me.
Probably not, they’re reasonably fun to be around but my sisters have a completely different social life, I joke that one of them is allergic to fun and the other is somewhat of a homebody. My parents are obviously a bit older than me, and aren’t really that similar to the few people that age that I hang out with socially.
If some time warp allowed me to meet my parents/grandparents when THEY were in their late 20’s, it’d likely be another story. My dad was apparently quite the party animal (he’s not now), and my grandfather would probably tell me riveting stories about what he did during the War while taking me for everything I was worth (he was apparently quite a card shark in the service). I don’t think I’d have any Back to the Future-style trouble with my mom - I think she was a bit of an old-fashioned romantic and I probably wouldn’t be her type. Wow, I’m going to stop thinking about this now.
Heck, yeah. We’ve got similar interests and generally enjoy being around each other (for limited amounts of time anyway). We’re also all a little…off. We’re the only people who get us really.
Whilst I don’t dislike my family (I don’t even dislike my estranged brother, I just feel ambivalent towards him), we have nothing in common, so I doubt I’d be friends with either of my brothers.
I could imagine working with either my mother or father and enjoying having them as colleagues, but I don’t tend to have friendships with people of that age.
My nearer brother and his family I would. They are terrific to be around and whenever I visit home I stay with them. My other brother I get on OK with but I often only see him briefly when I’m home. My parents are a pain mostly. I only visit out of obligation/kindliness as I’d rather not.
Not a chance. I’m the only liberal in a family of conservatives, and my parents still think Donald Rumsfeld was one of history’s finest military thinkers.
No. My mum laid down the “YOU HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF ME” speech when I was like 12 and has had quite a few episodes of psychotic rage, not really the person I like to hang out with but I promised I would call her twice a week and give her money when I grow up… My dad is just bat crap crazy, also hitting me when I was a kid (well… I guess I still am a kid but at least he doesn’t hit me anymore, though I think that’s mostly because he’s too busy and I’m never really home…) doesn’t really help. My brother is nice enough but he can be the biggest dick in the world, more than once I’ve been screamed at and threatened with a beating because I “looked at him wrong”. No joke.
She waited until you were 12? I’m envious. Oh, and since given your age you may not be familiar with it, may I recommend “like water for chocolate”? Either the book or the movie.
The only reason I talk with my mother is that she happens to be the mother of those two brothers I co-parented. I have a good relationship with the youngest one and have had friends who were very similar to him; things with Middlebro are more complicated, if we’d met at work we might be work-friends. I can stand his wife only in small doses. Their eldest is my godson and a wonderful example of a case where “lateral reproduction” works ridiculously well: there’s a lot of things in which he takes more after Auntie Nava than after either one of his parents, and I hope that we’ll stay on friendly terms for a long time - his little sister, we’ll see.
More distant relatives range from “always enjoy running into them” to “the notion of being in the same room makes my stomach hurt”.
ETA: KarlGrenze, love your answer.
Sweet Jesus, no. I’ve talked about my family plenty here, but…my mom is dead now, so I won’t talk about her. The rest of my family is high-strung, over-wrought, overly dramatic, and the ones who have had kids pretty much believes I am not a real woman because I haven’t.
Huh- that’s a very good question, and one I hadn’t thought about before.
I’d have to say “probably not”. They’re all fairly judgmental and religious, and I don’t really have a lot in common with any of them. I can’t imagine that we’d ever move past the “acquaintance” phase.
Everybody is dead now except a niece and nephew. The nephew is a drunk and the niece is a bit too redneck for me. Fortunately, they are some distance away.
Yes, definitely! They’re interesting, fun, and just enough common sense missing that nights out are always an adventure. I love going out with my mother, except for when I get the unshakable feeling she’s cooler than I am.
My parents had three sons one after the other – I think there’s five years between first and third. Then they took a 10-year break, and then had me.
To say I have little in common with my brothers would be an understatement. We get along fine, but any socialization we do is forced. Whereas the other three will think nothing of planning a hunting or fishing trip (which involves big plans, as they’re all in separate parts of the country), we all know I likely wouldn’t get a phone call to be included. Not a whine – it’s just the way it is. I have no interest in doing either of those things, and they’re happier not having to worry about having someone along who knows nothing about those things things.
The brother who is 10 years older than me lives three miles away, and I see him slightly more often than the ones who live in Minnesota and Colorado. They’re my brothers, and I love 'em, but…well, if I’m being honest, no, I probably wouldn’t be friends with them if they weren’t family (although “casual acquaintances” would be fine, since that’s pretty much what they are now).
Nope - I rarely have anything to do with my family other than my mother and one of my aunts. Mother and I get on well, but that’s about it. Family is vastly overrated in my opinion.
I’m sure I would still be friends with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law. Probably not any cousins/aunts/uncles - too many differences, and we hardly interact outside of Facebook and Christmas as it is.
My sister and I are good friends and have similar interests. But we may as well be space aliens as far as most of the rest of the family on the American side is concerned. We’re really active, outdoorsy, wilderness loving people. Whereas our parents and most of the rest of the family are quite sedentary, and if they got lost in the woods, would just perish by morning and get eaten by badgers.
My sister used to row competitively and I live to kayak. Neither of our parents can swim and have a profound fear of small water craft. I have no idea how we got into the activities we got into. None of my uncles can swim either, or ride bikes, and none of them have set foot on a campground since Boy Scouts in the 1940s, with the exception of one, goofy cousin, they’ve passed down their inactive lifestyle to their kids.
One generation down form there, all the kids can swim and ride bikes, so we can relate to our cousins’ kids, but not to anyone in our own generation and up (goofy cousin excepted).
So while our parents and cousins and are all good, decent people, they don’t know what to talk to us about and can’t relate to us. We’re also vegetarian, so they don’t know what to do about food if we visit. We are strange, exotic, urban aliens to them.
Good to see so many likeminded people here. I’ve learned my views on family are often met by astonishment and horror by the general populace.
I’d have no interest in spending time with any of my family members were they not related to me, in fact I don’t have it even when we are. I’m the only academic person in my family. We share no interests, our views on religion are polar opposites. When I visit my family, I feel like a stranger in a strange and uneasy land, the same I felt while growing up. I’m not sure I’ll cry when I hear any of them have died. I’m pretty sure they’ll cry when they hear of my death, though.
