Post by topiarystepmom on Jul 29, 2016 1:17:24 GMT
Just Like Family
Originally Posted on 11/28/15,
I had this on a blog I briefly had published quite a few years ago. While it doesn't relate to younger friends specifically, I find the concept of friends being "like family" to be a profoundly delusional one. Unless people are totally alone in the world, you can be pretty sure someone else will take precedence over you if and when the chips are down. To be considered "just like family" is to maintain a very unreliable status - but then, who am I to talk, with so many family members (real and not) gone MIA? lol
Friends who try to turn themselves into members of your family....It is a sweet concept in theory - people who love you so much they are willing to go beyond the borders of friendship and now identify themselves as part of your very own "extended family" - You know what I'm talking about - these are the people who become very close to you (usually over a very brief period of time) and start saying, "Oh - you are just like family" - or worse - "You ARE family!". This is code which translates into " nothing is too good for you" or "you are the best thing to happen to me"...yada, yada...
This phenomenon usually occurs towards the beginning of the relationship. Like a new love affair, everything is wonderful. You feel very good about these people - they feel good about you. Then they begin to say - "just drop over anytime - you're just like family" or "you are so wonderful - you're more like parents to me", or "the children are so comfortable around you - they feel like you are like their grandparents". One woman actually told me "you are my sister"!
And, the halcyon days that follow...they threaten to rival nirvana itself! There are Sunday dinners and the holidays - Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with tables filled with people who, while biologically are unrelated, happily shovel down your lovingly prepared food - all the while expounding on how wonderful it all is to be together. There are the countless presents - often for the kids - for Christmas, birthdays, graduations, first communions, etc. Kids are the added bonus - they take up a lot of your time with school plays and concerts, sports competitions - not to mention regaling you with sweet little entertainments made up just for you and then performed at all those "family" dinners!
So now what do we actually have here - People who have gone beyond the realms of friendship - people who are a part of your lives. People who seem seriously concerned for your welfare and yet who are not biologically related to you. And you - you really start to care about these people and how they feel. You genuinely celebrate their successes, bemoan their losses, and become interested - vested really, in what's happening in their lives and the lives of their children.
I must admit - for a time, I could find myself totally buying into these good intentions! Hook line and sinker, I could actually be made to believe that these people are part of some weird extension of a family that has blessedly dropped from the sky. It could be that going through all the horrible experiences in my own biological family as well as dealing with a 30+ year nightmare of stepchildren and a psychotic ex-wife of my own wonderful husband. Some part of me really wants it to be true - really wants it to last. Oh - to finally have some wonderful and uncomplicated relationships that are close and loving. It is an answer to a prayer and, after all, what harm could it really do?
But time passes - and you start to realize that those friends that used to be just like family are actually BECOMING just like family! They take you for granted - they treat you with disdain - and that's when they deign to speak to you at all. They begin to lie to you (or at least conveniently mislead you). In other words, they reveal themselves to be as dysfunctional as the very family you actually were born into (and want to avoid!)
The worst part is that many people who tend to go the "just like family" route can quickly disappear from your life entirely - And then suddenly, your instant "family" is suddenly no more - There are no more "family dinners" - you don't get to see the children anymore...
Who knows what makes this happen? Perhaps the intensity is far too great for them - or perhaps these people finally have realized that, in the end, that we weren't really "family" after all.
Truth be told, it is not all a one way street - there are two parties who are culpable in this behavior - You allow it to happen - all the while knowing that it is a fantasy. But can you really be blamed? The lure of it is too great - the promise of a family - the delusion of unconditional love, the promise of having people who will be there to support and nurture you - it becomes a such terrible distraction- a liability, truth be told. And yet - it is so irresistible - because as human beings, whom among us does not wish to have people to love and to love in return?
I guess the moral of the story is that if (when) someone tells you you are just like family,you need to run for the hills...becaue it truly is the kiss of DEATH to any relationship!
Here endeth the lesson!
Originally Posted on 11/28/15,
I had this on a blog I briefly had published quite a few years ago. While it doesn't relate to younger friends specifically, I find the concept of friends being "like family" to be a profoundly delusional one. Unless people are totally alone in the world, you can be pretty sure someone else will take precedence over you if and when the chips are down. To be considered "just like family" is to maintain a very unreliable status - but then, who am I to talk, with so many family members (real and not) gone MIA? lol
Friends who try to turn themselves into members of your family....It is a sweet concept in theory - people who love you so much they are willing to go beyond the borders of friendship and now identify themselves as part of your very own "extended family" - You know what I'm talking about - these are the people who become very close to you (usually over a very brief period of time) and start saying, "Oh - you are just like family" - or worse - "You ARE family!". This is code which translates into " nothing is too good for you" or "you are the best thing to happen to me"...yada, yada...
This phenomenon usually occurs towards the beginning of the relationship. Like a new love affair, everything is wonderful. You feel very good about these people - they feel good about you. Then they begin to say - "just drop over anytime - you're just like family" or "you are so wonderful - you're more like parents to me", or "the children are so comfortable around you - they feel like you are like their grandparents". One woman actually told me "you are my sister"!
And, the halcyon days that follow...they threaten to rival nirvana itself! There are Sunday dinners and the holidays - Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with tables filled with people who, while biologically are unrelated, happily shovel down your lovingly prepared food - all the while expounding on how wonderful it all is to be together. There are the countless presents - often for the kids - for Christmas, birthdays, graduations, first communions, etc. Kids are the added bonus - they take up a lot of your time with school plays and concerts, sports competitions - not to mention regaling you with sweet little entertainments made up just for you and then performed at all those "family" dinners!
So now what do we actually have here - People who have gone beyond the realms of friendship - people who are a part of your lives. People who seem seriously concerned for your welfare and yet who are not biologically related to you. And you - you really start to care about these people and how they feel. You genuinely celebrate their successes, bemoan their losses, and become interested - vested really, in what's happening in their lives and the lives of their children.
I must admit - for a time, I could find myself totally buying into these good intentions! Hook line and sinker, I could actually be made to believe that these people are part of some weird extension of a family that has blessedly dropped from the sky. It could be that going through all the horrible experiences in my own biological family as well as dealing with a 30+ year nightmare of stepchildren and a psychotic ex-wife of my own wonderful husband. Some part of me really wants it to be true - really wants it to last. Oh - to finally have some wonderful and uncomplicated relationships that are close and loving. It is an answer to a prayer and, after all, what harm could it really do?
But time passes - and you start to realize that those friends that used to be just like family are actually BECOMING just like family! They take you for granted - they treat you with disdain - and that's when they deign to speak to you at all. They begin to lie to you (or at least conveniently mislead you). In other words, they reveal themselves to be as dysfunctional as the very family you actually were born into (and want to avoid!)
The worst part is that many people who tend to go the "just like family" route can quickly disappear from your life entirely - And then suddenly, your instant "family" is suddenly no more - There are no more "family dinners" - you don't get to see the children anymore...
Who knows what makes this happen? Perhaps the intensity is far too great for them - or perhaps these people finally have realized that, in the end, that we weren't really "family" after all.
Truth be told, it is not all a one way street - there are two parties who are culpable in this behavior - You allow it to happen - all the while knowing that it is a fantasy. But can you really be blamed? The lure of it is too great - the promise of a family - the delusion of unconditional love, the promise of having people who will be there to support and nurture you - it becomes a such terrible distraction- a liability, truth be told. And yet - it is so irresistible - because as human beings, whom among us does not wish to have people to love and to love in return?
I guess the moral of the story is that if (when) someone tells you you are just like family,you need to run for the hills...becaue it truly is the kiss of DEATH to any relationship!
Here endeth the lesson!
