Oh, I'm that aunt. My family sucks. But my niece contacted me yesterday since I'm moving to where I grew up. I know my fam is a bunch of asshats and she asked me if I could take her to a concert. My idiot sister would not allow her to go. I asked my niece which bands she would you like to see and immediately booked 4 tickets for those and another 2 for Moon Hooch. Fuck people who don't allow you listening to music.

That's me! I love my little nephews but the siblings are so toxic. All they do is tear people down and I stopped caring around the time my brother made a pass at my girlfriend and my sister started cheating on her husband.

I don't need people like that in my life.

My whole family is this way. For the most part we all recognize that you can live your life and not communicate every day, week, or month and still be okay with a person. We are great at picking up where we left off we just all have our own lives and that's okay.

It still feels strange to me when friends contact their parents daily or weekly and say their parents etc. Get upset for not contacting them frequently enough. I understand that's the way their relationship works but maybe my family is the odd duck Lmao

I am that uncle. Both my close and extended family are really nice, like better than any other I've ever met, but I just can't handle all the social stuff. Most of them understand and we all like each other, but I still feel bad about it and it kinda sucks being the one that's mostly outside of the "bubble".

My parents made the choice to live farther from the rest of the clan 20 years ago and it was a good decision. Today, everyone over there is at each other's throats or not on speaking terms. Us on the otherhand, they all love us. Not because we're great or anything, but because we have zero drama with anyone.

I'm that uncle. I hope one day my nephews reach out to me without their mother/my sister's toxic involvement, but so far, she's just to be involved in every relationship she can to sabotage it.

It was the inverse in my family. The uncle who extricated himself from most of the family was actually a huge piece of garbage and did everyone a favor by cutting us off. I don't think he expected that nobody would make an effort to re-establish contact.

I'm that uncle

Edit: I also have that uncle. He's biracial and I'm queer just to give you an idea.

I'm fortunate to have a great family, but I do see the point. My ex's family was a piece of work.

That could have been me but my nephews don't know about me existing, I guess, because I've distanced not over being in discord, but just over moving far away and not being willing enough to keep the connection. Sometimes I feel bad about it, but mostly not

Auntie Dawn, I realise you're probably more like me than I realised. Especially because my family probably call me a bitch who's ashamed of her working class background now too.

I left my family years ago, but its mostly because I'm the fuckup everyone looks down on. Im tired of being lowest in the family.

As an Uncle Brian who keeps his distance... I hope my niblings make this realization sooner rather than later.

I began keeping my family at arm's length after they bullied me to tears after I'd told my sister I thought she was quick to jump to conclusions. I couldn't believe the logical jumps she was making after I'd said it, and furthermore that no one took my side, and further furthermore that they just kept at it until I cried and didn't comfort me at all. It's an emotionally complex position to be in!

You guys have families?

I hope so, but oh I fuckin doubt it.

I wish them the best though

I'm that guy. I'm the one that rarely likes to be around their family. Always drama, always finger pointing, and always me having to defuse the situation. Feels like work.

Word.

Or cousins, they were the "bad children." I'm so lucky to have had friends

How’d I end up with great family on both sides?! Is this rare :o

I dunno, that aunt and uncle keep their distance because they're hard republicans and my family are all at the most conservative capable of existing in a socialist space without fearing being struck down by God

I don't see myself suddenly becoming only barely not so right wing that it's only a question if I'm voting for Trump

This American Life, Episode 587 - The Perils of Intimacy. Thanks for trying, evil stepmother.

Yeah, she was insane