Author Topic: Friends of family? (Read 6607 times)

NWR_pap64 · « **on:** August 20, 2007, 09:16:58 AM »

Lately, I've been wondering if I value my friends more than my family. I grew up in a household that believes that friends (and in some cases girlfriends and boyfriends) come and go but family is always there. Yet I also believe that some friends are just as important as they too help in many ways on your growth. So, what is your take on the issue? Do you find yourself caring more about your friends than your family or vice versa?

GoldenPhoenix · « **Reply #1 on:** August 20, 2007, 09:24:27 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64
Lately, I've been wondering if I value my friends more than my family. I grew up in a household that believes that friends (and in some cases girlfriends and boyfriends) come and go but family is always there. Yet I also believe that some friends are just as important as they too help in many ways on your growth. So, what is your take on the issue? Do you find yourself caring more about your friends than your family or vice versa?

Well I am someone who only surrounds herself with a few close friends who I value almost if not just as much as my family. Then again I guess it depends on what family members you are talking about!

ShyGuy · « **Reply #2 on:** August 20, 2007, 09:37:37 AM »

Too many times I've seen people get a new boyfriend/girlfriend and then ditch everyone else in their life. Of course, they come crawling back after the relationship falls apart.

My solution is that as a sociopath, I value nobody. JOKE!

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #3 on:** August 20, 2007, 09:39:30 AM »

My love is gained on a "first come, first serve" basis...So act fast!

UltimatePartyBear · « **Reply #4 on:** August 20, 2007, 09:53:48 AM »

You can pick your friends, but not your family (or your friend's nose). There are people in my extended family that I don't really care to have anything to do with, and plenty of others who are almost strangers because I never see them. Plus, my siblings and I are all more than five years apart in age. I'd say I'm closer to a couple of my friends than I am to anyone other than my parents. Even so, familial love is quite different from even the closest friendship. I definitely love my family a lot, and they're more important to me in the long run.

Ian Sane · « **Reply #5 on:** August 20, 2007, 10:26:19 AM »

I think it depends on the person. I know a lot of people who have lots of friends but aren't really close with any of them. They have a big group of people they hang out with but don't spend time with those people one-on-one and they're almost more like "good time partners". You get together with them to do something fun but it doesn't go much beyond that.

I have a small group of friends in which I'm very close to and I'm also very close to my parents and brothers but not my extended relatives like cousins and grandparents. I find I just only feel comfortable with a small group of people. I can't have casual friends that I just see once every few years or hang out with a group of people. It's not that I don't want to it's just that it doesn't work. I'm just too... different for lack of a better term. I'm not easily classified. It might be less that I need to have a few people that I'm close with or just that I'm not compatible with many people so I naturally develop close relationships with those that I am. And in return those people form a close relationship with me because we fit so well. My best friends are either people that, like me, don't fit in usually, or they're the opposite and are people that just hit if off with everyone.

This does make things a little more difficult with dating. I don't neglect anyone in favour of a girlfriend because the girl is compatible enough with me that she fits in with my friends and family. If they aren't that compatible usually she never gets to the point of being my girlfriend. We never get beyond the first few dates or she never agrees to go out with me in the first place.

So if you're in my "tight" group you're almost no different than family to me. I think there's a certain obligation in life to at least try to have a good relationship with your family. If you're going to be estranged from them it best be for a good reason and not just be selfishness or bailing when the times get rough. But don't sh!t on your friends either. You need to determine who really cares about you and sometimes that's not your family, but be certain of that.

And for some reason there is one type of personality that I never get along with. I can't describe it but I know it when I see it. They're always males and almost immediately seem to dislike me. They almost pick on me and if we were kids in school I'm sure they would. Maybe I'm just incompatible with jerks but if I meet a guy with personality x they just start treating me like sh!t without me saying a word. Sometimes these are really social guys that everyone seems to like but they encounter me and turn into a bully.

King of Twitch · « **Reply #6 on:** August 20, 2007, 01:17:36 PM »

I say family first, always. Unless they're a nongamer; once my cousin admitted they bought electroplankton so now they aren't invited to thanksgivings or christmases for a long time.

ShyGuy · « **Reply #7 on:** August 20, 2007, 01:57:36 PM »

MJRx9000 wins.

Kairon · « **Reply #8 on:** August 20, 2007, 05:00:45 PM »

Family are automatically counted as very good friends. You've gotta be a pretty awesome friend to bump out one of the family.

GoldenPhoenix · « **Reply #9 on:** August 20, 2007, 05:04:53 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Family are automatically counted as very good friends. You've gotta be a pretty awesome friend to bump out one of the family.

Kairon doesn't have any friends, that is sad.

Kairon · « **Reply #10 on:** August 20, 2007, 05:12:22 PM »

I have... *looks at hand* ... one... two... two??? and a half? /cry

Well, to be truthful, I don't really have friends. I have acquaintances.

EasyCure · « **Reply #11 on:** August 20, 2007, 09:16:24 PM »

i'll be your friend kairon!

i'll be all your friends!

ian gets the first hug!

Kairon · « **Reply #12 on:** August 20, 2007, 11:02:25 PM »

You can be my acquaintance.

Ian Sane · « **Reply #13 on:** August 21, 2007, 06:55:51 AM »

"You can be my acquaintance."

I don't think I want anyone to be my acquaintance. Be my friend or be a stranger. With acquaintances you have to have token chit-chat when you bump into them. Well SOME acquaintances I want to bump into (namely attractive girls who I wish to be more than acquaintances with) but my second grade teacher I haven't seen in fifteen years? Or how about when I go to lunch and as I'm walking back I see one of my co-workers. For some reason I have to say something as I walk by. Some joke or comment. Why? I just saw this person ten minutes ago at work but because we're out of the office we have to say "getting lunch, eh?"

In comparison friends kick ass. You bump into them when you don't expect and it's like stumbling into fun. "Hey look who it is! Let's get something to eat!"

GoldenPhoenix · « **Reply #14 on:** August 21, 2007, 06:58:49 AM »

Ian has friends? Now I feel really sorry for Kairon.

UERD · « **Reply #15 on:** August 21, 2007, 03:40:20 PM »

This topic makes me hungry.

It all depends, really, but friends, family, and a significant other all play distinct (if overlapping) roles. Sometimes, family provides an emotional harbor and bedrock, while friends are more dynamic and your relationship is more likely to evolve.

EasyCure · « **Reply #16 on:** August 21, 2007, 04:54:34 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
You can be my acquaintance.

pssh no wonder you don't have any friends

/cry

that Baby guy · « **Reply #17 on:** August 21, 2007, 04:59:50 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
I have... *looks at hand* ... one... two... two??? and a half? /cry

Well, to be truthful, I don't really have friends. I have acquaintances.

Meh, I'm about the same. I have issues making friends. It just doesn't work for me. I'm nice, considerate, caring, and giving, but I just seem to be unable to maintain a lasting friendship in nearly every case.

EasyCure · « **Reply #18 on:** August 21, 2007, 05:16:34 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: thatguy
Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
I have... *looks at hand* ... one... two... two??? and a half? /cry

Well, to be truthful, I don't really have friends. I have acquaintances.

Meh, I'm about the same. I have issues making friends. It just doesn't work for me. I'm nice, considerate, caring, and giving, but I just seem to be unable to maintain a lasting friendship in nearly every case.

Actually i'm the same way. I still hang out with my one best friend of 17 years but thats only when he's in town from college. After him i have one other person i'd consider a friend because we went through alot of shite with our significant others at around the same time and were just there to help each other out. If it wasn't for those problems we wouldn't be as close. Everyone else is really more of an acquaintance that i see every now and again.

the worst though are the people that are barely even acquaintances, their the ones you exchange phone numbers with at one point but you never call each other and you don't want to delete them from your phone book for some reason. Then you end up drunk dialing them and telling them you'd F them in a heartbeat, and it didn't matter if they were a lesbian.

I think the older you get the harder it is to make new, and have, friends. I wish it weren't like that, i wish i could meet more people i can bond with and have then become like a brother or sister to me... But it just won't happen.

Ian Sane · « **Reply #19 on:** August 22, 2007, 05:10:28 AM »

"I think the older you get the harder it is to make new, and have, friends."

I'll agree with that. All my friends are guys I knew in high school. Excluding girlfriends I haven't had a new friend since grade 10. Grade school is an ideal place to make friends since you see those people every weekday, all of them are within five years of your age, and almost no one wants to be there so at the very least you can bond in an easy us vs. them way. At work only recently has anyone my age started working there. One of them is a girl and I don't usually make platonic friends with girls and the other is married and has kids so as a single guy I don't relate to him. People are so different when you're an adult. But when you're a kid you can just start from a love of playing Nintendo and then you grow up together.

Sessha · « **Reply #20 on:** August 22, 2007, 11:09:05 AM »

I can see where your coming from, it was much easier to make friends in school because you had more time to bond with them. But in school I didn't have many friends. Looking back that was most likely my fault, In school everyone else was caucassian and one korean person

(guess who) so I had to deal with quite a lot of teasing and it was hard for me to open up to people or even trust them.

I think we are kind of stuck with the friends we have after a certain age. It becomes harder to open up to people because we don't have the time. But it's not impossible to make them. I have had the same friends for years and I don't know if I could make new ones easily. No one can say who is more important it's your feelings about the people. The important thing is not to take them either of them for granted.

Now on the subject of acquaintances, I whole heartedly agree with Ian I hate acquaintances, if only for the fact when I am in a store I have to make false pleasantries with 2 or 3 people asking how they've been when I really don't care and asking what they are here for when I know what they are here for, they need food. Then making a useless comment on the weather. People shouldn't feel like they need to stop and say hello. I don't know how many times I have heard people say "Well I should just go say hello" they are just furthering the concept that everyone everywhere has to say hello.

Mashiro · « **Reply #21 on:** August 22, 2007, 11:14:09 AM »

The answer should always be as follows:

Mashiro

Ian Sane · « **Reply #22 on:** August 22, 2007, 11:49:51 AM »

"Looking back that was most likely my fault, In school everyone else was caucassian and one korean person

(guess who) so I had to deal with quite a lot of teasing and it was hard for me to open up to people or even trust them."

I wouldn't consider that your fault at all. Getting picked on is a raw deal. Though the funny thing is the me of today probably would instinctively want to make fun of the me of then, if I had grown up to have the same personality. No one deserves to get bullied but when I was a little kid I was such a f*cking dork. I sucked at sports and videogames (still kinda do but I try hard now so no one cares; I used to not even try), couldn't swim, was scared of heights (still am), took over a year to learn to ride a bike, was a picky eater, was completely clueless in any current trends or fads, and I had nothing fun to do at my house (no videogame system, pool, etc.) Later my family got a trampoline so people actually wanted to come to my house and I learned to play guitar so I was actually good at something cool.

Kairon · « **Reply #23 on:** August 22, 2007, 01:12:31 PM »

Is playing the guitar an instant ticket to respectability?

Quote
Originally posted by: Sessha
I can see where your coming from, it was much easier to make friends in school because you had more time to bond with them. But in school I didn't have many friends. Looking back that was most likely my fault, In school everyone else was caucassian and one korean person (guess who) so I had to deal with quite a lot of teasing and it was hard for me to open up to people or even trust them.

That... completely bites. How in the world is that your fault? You were a kid, life dealt you a hand, and you survived. That's about all that anyone can expect of us out of grade school and even high school. Now that you're beyond all that and either in college or "the real world" ... NOW'S the time you're screwed if you make any mistakes!

You know... I think the thing about friends is there's a level of trust and honesty there. I have people who consider me friends (it's unfortunate that I may or may not feel the same way about them) and the sense of acceptance I sometimes feel from them astounds me. My problem is that I'm too snooty. I can be friendly, be congenial and carefree, but to truly say my mind and not censor myself? There's very few people I feel capable of doing that with. It's easier to do that with people you grew up with because there's an innate acceptance there, but it's rare to have the chance to form those same sorts of trusting bonds with new people who are incidental to your life.

EasyCure · « **Reply #24 on:** August 22, 2007, 05:00:30 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Is playing the guitar an instant ticket to respectability?

only if you're good. These days any emo kid can pick up a guitar, get tabs online, and learn himself three power chords and impress his friends by playing a greenday song or something.

i first got into playing as a freshman and had met some people interested in similar music as i was and they became my only friend in that high school. This school had a bad reputation for being very “ghetto” and when i first got in there i was literally scared of getting shot simply because i prefer different styles of rock over hiphop. And even though i do like some hiphop, i didn't show it like everyone else in the clothes i wore so i got picked on a few times just for dressing the way i did... Lol this one time someone asked me if the Ramones was a clothing label cuz i had a few different shirts with their name on them!

anyway back to the topic, i made friends with other guitar players and sometimes we'd bring our instruments in and play in the halls or sneak out into the field. Other than that small group of people though, playing guitar gave me no cool points. I did get some curiosity points though, one or two girls asked stupid things like how it works and if its hard to play, but other than that no one cared. I remember this one guy grabbed a friends acoustic while he wasn't looking and broke a string by strumming violently, then pretended to smash it on the ground only to toss it back to my friend and screaming “ROCK AND ROLL DUDE!” in what is known as the “white” voice.

When i transfered out and into another school people were a little more tolerant of others so i wasn't afraid of bringing my acoustic to school and had even more musical friends. still though, everyone else really didn't care. Some people would ask me to play stuff even though they wouldn't know the song, but its still better than having idiots come by and bang their heads while i played.

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Author Topic: Friends of family? (Read 6607 times)