The Gamer's Quarter

[aderack]

So, uh. How many people actually get along with their families? It always weirds me out when I encounter people with good, close, supportive, friendly relationships with their parents and any siblings. And who not only know but are familiar and reasonably chummy with any more distant relations. This wasn't really the case for anyone I knew, growing up. As an adult, though, every now and then I encounter a stable family. It sort of fascinates me. Like a tear in the fabric of reality.
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[Harveyjames]

I get along good with my family in pretty much the way you described, with two exceptions. My eldest sister is crazy (I think she's paranoid schitzophrenic) and I sort of decided to cut her out of my life, since I don't have any time for someone who tells me my mum is evil and should be killed and whatever else she believes. Also, my dad is a complete dick, so I don't speak to him if I can avoid it.

The ones I get on with include my mum, my other three sisters and my brothers-in-law. I'm pretty close to them.

Oh yeah, my sisters are from a different dad to me. If I see their dad again I'm going to kill him. I think that's it!

[aderack]

... How many siblings do you have? I'm counting four so far. Plus sister-husbands. And you.
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[seryogin]

My mother and I drive each other nuts, but that's on account of me being 23. My parents have always been supportive of whatever I decided to do with my life, no matter how wrongheaded.

I have one sister and a cousin who treats me like a younger brother. My sister and I get along fairly well, she's always gone out of her way to be supportive, even if we've had very different ideas about a lot of things. My cousin lives in Russia with my aunt, so I haven't seen him in over five years, but he's been pretty nice to me throughout my life.

I could do a lot of complaining about my family, but that would be a lie. I've seen a lot of shit families in my time (much closer than I actually would've liked to) and I'm glad that my parents brought me up the way they did.

I've always viewed my relations with them as Crime and Punishment without the murders. Meaning, an impotent, arrogant son with mood swings struggling from the shame of having a supportive, nice family that makes accepting their support so much more difficult than it should be, for both of us.
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[Harveyjames]

[Swimmy]

Actually, I was just telling someone the other day how odd I thought it was that I get along with my family. Not as well as I could--I live 400 miles away from them and don't call nearly as often as I ought--but we're all decent friends to some extent.

I'm not sure how this sort of thing comes about. Of course I disliked my brother when I was younger, and my sister disliked me. That was just highschool-fueled clique stuff, though, not anything serious. (My friends liked to make fun of my brother so I joined in. Since I was one of the school's oddballs, I embarrassed my popular sister. Etc.) But now, whenever I'm around, we hang out and talk. With my oldest brother, about videogames and theology, with my older brother, about music and politics, with my sister, about relationships and the bad things we do without our parents knowing.

I'm not sure how much of it is just upbringing. We have great parents. We were homeschooled and then privately schooled for a time. (We don't give off the vibe anymore, but you know how you can always tell homeschooled kids from how abnormally well-behaved they are? My parents used to get complimets from strangers in restaurants.) But, yes, I see the same sort of thing going on often at my church.

None of this compares to how I get on with my dad, though. I've even gotten him to tell me about his past drug abuse, something he didn't even tell my mom about. Every time I go home, we manage to get wrapped up in at least one three or four hour-long conversation.

Now, contrast this with my parents' respective families. My mom had an apparently great father, but he died when she had just begun dating my dad. Her mother, my only living grandparent, is a horrible person--superstitious, stupid, unreasonable, stubborn, and racist (of course). According to my dad, it's not the age; she's always been like this. She is now and has always been horribly mean to my mom (calling her a fat cow, etc.), who to this day still suffers depression and has trouble coping with the fact that her mother never loved her. My mom's brother is a nice enough guy, but he joined an eastern religion and lives in a convent in California. The rest of her family is composed of typical rednecks--not the type of people I'd really like to know.

My dad had a scoundrel for a father. One of those men who treats his wife like dirt, leaves the house for months on end to sleep with random women, then shows up again to beat his wife a little and take whatever money she's made. After he left for good, my grandma remarried another scumbag, go figure. I've seen my dad's childhood home; it was a shoebox. His siblings: oldest sister, pregnant at 16, married a scumbag, had some more kids, died from a heart attack at 60; a twin brother, takes after his father, once tied up his wife and his neighbor in the bathtub and tried to take his daughter to Mexico; another sister, the only other one with a stable, non drug-addicted family, but whom my dad resents for treating their mother poorly while grandma was staying with her.

In other words, I think my family is the result of two messed-up people with rotten families who got out of it and decided to do their damndest to not let their family take the same route.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[dhex]

[dessgeega]

my sister's sweet sixteen is this weekend. she and i are going to reenact the "now the student has become the master" lightsaber battle in star wars. (this is to be my way of passing the torch to the younger generation, you see.)

my sister wants to be a music journalist, and she and i are close. my other sister, who is only a year-and-a-half younger than me, grew up alongside me but nevertheless has made very different life decisions than i. we're still close.

i love my mother very much. my father is well-meaning but hopelessly out of touch. my grandmothers have all relocated in the past few years to be near my parents, so that my parents can take care of them when they need it.

my mother's mother is driving everyone crazy but we love her anyway.
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[The Great Unwashed]

I dunno, sometimes I feel out of place for saying it but I get along really well with my family, my mother, my father and my single brother. Hell, I even get along really well with my uncles, aunties, my gandmothers, and all of my cousins on both sides and internationally.

It's really freaky how well the whole clan meshes, actually.
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[helicopterp]

My sister and I communicate best by screaming Kelly Clarkson songs remorselessly at the top of our lungs. I believe this is a good thing.


My mom and I are wonderful to each other when we're far apart, but we clash a lot at home. I lie to her far too often.

Dad's--well, he's okay. It's complicated and has a lot more to do with where he has taken his life than any resentment between us.

I just moved away from my extended family in part because I have lived near them for my entire life. They're wonderful people, even at their worst. I can't wait to see them in a month and a half.


I no longer live near anyone related to me. I escaped the South without the accent they all possess to varying degrees. This is a tragedy to me.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[purplechair]

My family seem to find me incomprehensible.

My parents, for example, had difficulting conceptualising how my old software testing job earned a wage. Whenever we started talking about how much money I made, they'd gaze off into space as if it was a zen koan.

[ryan]

I get along great with my immediate family (parents still married and one brother), but I don't see my extended family too often. My parents had both of us when they were young, but my dad worked 2-3 (sometimes 4) jobs to keep the family afloat. My brother was born two months early and I had two hernias when I was young, all of which put them into debt for a while. He eventually got work in Texas, driving home only on the weekends. As I got older, my father got work closer, driving 3 hours to work, and now an hour and a half to work. He went back to school and earned his MBA about 8 years ago and is extremely friendly.

My mother raised us when we were younger, often alone, but would also spend her time volunteering at a battered women's shelter as well. As we got older, she tried to adopt, but when that fell through she talked my dad into hosting a foreign exchange student from Italy, then three foster children - two brothers and one single fellow - before nearly burning out after my brother's wild times. I get along with my father better, and I can only be around her in small amounts before getting agitated, but she's still sweet and can surprise people with her interests. (Maggots? Awesome!)

I think this has too much family history? Eh, maybe not. My brother is gay and has finally found someone who is around his age and not a total sack of crap. Chris is actually really cool - he chimed in from another room during my loud rendition of Just a Friend - and fits in really well with the family. He has calmed my brother down a whole lot, though he is still impetuous, slightly arrogant, and a bit dramatic. We get along better than we should, often spending our evenings watching The Next Generation or Babylon 5 while complaining about how HellRaiser turned to shit.

I find it weird when people have severe family problems. My girlfriend and I have a disconnect because of this. She doesn't seem to understand how or why someone would want to hang out their parents while I don't see why it's all that strange.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[daphaknee]

oh man i love talking about my family

my brother is ten years older than me, (33) and we have different fathers. his dad is black and i rememeber riding the bus with my mom when i was very young and telling the bus driver 'I HAVE A BROWN BROTHER'. His dad and my mom had issues with eachother when he was growing up, i remember his dad stole him from my mom for a while (she won custody id ont know the details i was negative three) and my mom didnt see him for about a year.
he was my only sibling that i grew up with, and we're very close.

one of my sisters has MS but its not a big deal becuase she was such an evil cunt her whole life and now shes bitter about the disease and taking it out on everyone. for some reason she feels the need to try and keep in touch with me even though i never want to see her or talk to her and make it clear all the time. like she has this nagging urge that we have to be family even though we didnt grow up together and she was never nice to me. shes 44 now

my other sister is 43, has a daughter and lives in manhattan beach. she didnt go to college but she worked her ass off and makes a six figure salary now. shes funnny as hell but i dont talk to her much. she also sides with my mom when my mom goes crazy and takes things out on me because she has nothing better to do, but they're really close so i cant blame her.

my two sisters have the same father, but different from my father and my brothers dad

my mom is 64, grew up in ireland as an orphan with an unmarried parents, so if you've seen the magdalene sisters you'll know what my mom went through. like one time she made a friend in school and a nun took them both outside. the nun beat the shit out of my mom in front of her friend and said "DONT BE FRIEND WITH BASTARD SINNER CHILDREN" she left ireland when she was 18 becuase she couldnt deal with it anymore and came ot the states by herself. she's always been very cold and closed and the only way i can get stories about her childhood is through my uncle but he lives in canada and has a real life and cant be bothered with my pestering questions most of the time.
my mom is really depressed and lonely (she never gets close friends, im sure shes used to pushing everyone away)
im pretty much the only thing in her life right now, since im the last kid and i live the closest, but shes very negative and talking to her at all is really draining. there alwatys has to be something wrong with me and whenever i tell her good news she has a way to turn it around and make it horrible
shes the only person that makes me cry on a regular occasion and i am torn between cutting her off or feeling sorry for her and sticking around

i dont know much about my dad besides hes a schitzophrenic and lives in an insane aslyum. i havent gotten a letter from him in two years though (he usually sends me one on my brithday nad christmas) so my guess is hes dead

[Harveyjames]

Aw, that's a shame you're not close to your mom and dad. Who in your life provides a father and mother figure for you? Have you grown up to be able to cope without either?

Also, is your brother Balrog?

[Dracko]

My family is a confusing one at the best of times and I can't afford to trust any of them. I'm an uncle to two nephews, one older than me. I have a sister, who I can only get along with so long as we don't talk about anything of consequence. My father died when I was 12, having survived a world war and God knows what else, but I've recently stopped lionising him as one who would lose a father is likely to do ever since it's become obvious to me he was a serial adulterer (I have a loathing of adulterers that runs deeper than even rapists. Don't ask, it doesn't make sense. It's a stupid feeling.) who planned to off one of his many wives. I have four half-siblings, the majority of whom are nearing their fifties or are well into them, and they're competing for validation on my part, save the one that ran out of the family for good and we haven't heard of for years - and I don't believe I can blame her. My mother is retired, and much like my sister, I can only have a conversation with her if nothing at all is said. She is violent when drunk and also lied about my father's death, something I doubt I could ever forgive her for. She's quietened down somewhat in later years, but I can not trust her, especially when it seems all she's concerned about is image towards her colleagues.

I don't wish to sound ungrateful, because I am quite dependent on her still, which is something that makes me feel equally guilty and pathetic most of the time, but her emotional plays tire me down.

I still haven't a clue what to do about any of this.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Harveyjames]

Wow, that reads like the opening to a novel.

[Dracko]

I don't feel like a central protagonist.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Harveyjames]

That's ok, the concept of the central protagonist is a purely western conceit anway.

[daphaknee]

[helicopterp]

[Harveyjames]

It's on 36% (neck and neck with Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium).

[aderack]

[seryogin]

This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

--Philip Larkin
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[Cossix]

I have a pretty good but kind of weird family. I'm really close with my sisters. My mom is really really nice and my dad is pretty distant but I still talk to him a lot.

The thing is we never discuss anything real in my family. Like things that happen. My little sister tried to commit suicide once and I didn't find out about it until months after it happened. She also got arrested for shoplifting and assaulting a security guard and no one told me but my other sister, who once got pregnant and I didn't find out about that until like six months into it.

But other than that, we're good. We laugh and have fun times a lot. My youngest sister (that most of the internet wants to have sex with) comes over to all the parties we have here and I go over to my parents' house at least once a week for dinner.

[Scratchmonkey]

[helicopterp]

[Dracko]

Yes.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Harveyjames]

Sounds like Phillip Larkin needs to get laid.

[daphaknee]

alright i was starting to feel bad becuase everyone got along so well with their folks

[extrabastardformula]

[boojiboy7]

Alrighty, so my family. Well, right now I get along with them pretty well. I see my dad about once a month or so, as he lives about 45 minutes away and owns a hobby shop so he gets pretty busy. We are capable of having really in depth conversations about random topics, as long as neither of us is involved in them.

My mother lives in the apartment building next door to me, at least for another week until she moves into one of those subsidized housing places since she is on Social Security Disability now due to her legs basically stopping working very well due to complications of diabetes and quintuple bypass surgery. I talk to her usually once a day or so, though it isn't anything strict and usually it is only when she needs me to do something to help her out. Not being able to walk too well makes little things like garbage and groceries a bit of a pain in the ass.

As for the past, well, things are a bit more not-so-good. I am an only child. My parents were married for four years before I came along. Growing up they seemed largely pretty happy with each other, though they disagreed on a lot of stuff. My dad was an athiest, a somewhat conservative Democrat, and a science and history dork (which of course mean he loved sci fi). My mom was a religion major in college, felt some sort of spirituality and believed in God (though she was fine with me never going to Church, because she didn't really like any of the organized Christian churches, and my dad hated orgnaized religion so much he would have had a seizure), a former hippie protester/flaming liberal, and only vaguely interested in science/history. As for their ideological disagreements, they would often get into very long involved conversations about various issues, which my mom would become a bit too emotionally invested in while my father regarded them as an intellectual exercise completely divorced from emotions, and the whole thing would end with my mom crying and my dad not understanding why.

Even with these arguments and what not, they seemed pretty happy, and got along pretty well. As I got older, they seemed to talk to each other less and spend more time on their own. I didn't really think it was out of the ordinary, as all the members of my family (self included) can be pretty solitary people. When I shattered my elbow in 7th grade, the growing tensions between my parents became a bit more apparent. Going through Physical Therapy, my father was very gung-ho about it all, my mother was very coddling, and ugh, fight fight fight.

This is not to say I blame myself for their divorce, because I don't. This was just when things became apparent to me.

Anyhow, the summer between 8th grade and high school, which was a bit weird for me because I had been in the Cleveland Public Schools up until then (not a good system at all, though I had a good time in it) and was going to be going to St. Ignatius (a Jesuit high school in Cleveland with a really good academic reputation and a nationally known football program), my parents separated. I was playing Jill of the Jungle on the 486 mega tower I had helped my dad assemble with Jeffrey, the younger borther of a friend down the street on a Friday afternoon when my dad came home surprisingly early from work. He told me he needed to talk, and Jeffrey went home. So my dad told me he was moving out, and then took me to buy a bed to put in his apartment for me that he also showed me. All of this before he said anything to my mom. That night when we sat down at dinner, I had to sit there and not say anything, and wait for my dad to tell my mom. When he finally told her, she sat there stunned and started crying and I pretended it was news to me and went out on the front porch crying while they argued and cried a lot.

After 19 years of marriage, my parents split up. I ended up alternating between the two houses. I hated my dad for doing what he did, but I kinda understood it. I hated being at my mom's because it was the same house from before the separation, but I had to take care of my mom a lot because she had all sorts of depression issues even without the separation. Oh yeah, and do that whole high-school-freshman-year-but-without-girls thing. Oh, add in the being a lower middle class kid from Cleveland with all the rich white burb kids as well. That added some fun.

So I ended up getting angry at my dad. And a year after the separation, when the divorce was final just a few days before my parents' twentieth anniversary, I got really angry at him, because he announced that the day after Thanksgiving that year, he would be getting married. This pissed me off because I thought the whole divorce thing was about him wanting to be solo for awhile and live on his own. Not so much.

The day of his wedding was fucking surreal. He gave me a Star Trek pocket watch and a new suit, as I was the best man in the wedding. Andrea (my stepmom) had her niece, who she was very close with, as a bridesmaid. It was at some hotel downtown and a justice-of-the-peace did the ceremony and there was all sorts of bullshit about my dad's family (my grandmother was having major health issues and my grandfather was suffering from some pretty bad alzheimers that would only get worse after grandma died, plus whatever of my dad's 5 brothers that made it to the ceremony) and I just wanted to leave. When it was over, I went to my mom's house and my mom had a party with a bunch of people she knew because she wanted to get drunk and wear a black velvet dress and try to forget that her husband just got married. I wanted to run away from home. I think I ended up sleeping at a friend's house for most of that weekend.

After my dad moved into Andrea's house, and I got a room in there, I did the split house thing for awhile. I ripped the rear-view mirror off the side of my dad's mid-life crisis Camaro trying to park it in the garage, and he gave me my first car, his old VW fox. I lived in that car more than either house, as I was driving all over and didn't want to see any of them. However, after awhile, I got really mad at Andrea and my dad for something, called my stepmom a fucking bitch to her face, shouted at my dad, and got forcibly kicked out of the front door. I didn't even have my car keys on me, so I had to walk to a gas station and call my mom for a ride. I lived for the next year with my mom, barely talked to my dad at all, and never got the car back. I did see my dad driving it into a junkyard to sell for scrap one day when I stole my mom's car to drive to a girl's house right after she dumped me in an attempt to stupidly save a relationship that was doomed to fail before it started.

So I mildly re-established contact with my dad near the end of senior year, and went off to college, where I only talked to him around holidays. I talked to my mom about once a week or so. I lived a hundred miles away, and only saw my parents about 5 times a year, if that. I guess this allowed some things to blow over between me and my dad. After a few years, I lived with him for a summer and helped him open his hobby store. We sorta worked things out then I guess, though I did try to get out of that house as much as possible. After six years in Columbus (4 for college, 1 for americorps, 1 for slacking off), I moved back to Cleveland to go to grad school, and that pretty much puts me in the position I am in today.

It's kinda a boring story I guess. I don't talk to a lot of my extended family. My mom has two brothers, but I have only seen them a combined 5 times in my entire life. My dad has 5 brothers, but I don't really see them at all. A few of my cousins I keep in occasional touch with. The schizophrenic one lives near my dad's shop and visits there so I run into him and have odd conversations. My mom's mother drives us insane with her ingrained narcissism and lack of ability to think of anyone else, but she is another whole post in and of herself. All of the other grandparents are dead, except my mom's stepmom, and yeah I never talk to her.

[simplicio]

Peachy as can be. I've got a family and extended family full of marvelous people who enjoy each others' company, with the exception of an estranged ex of my uncle's, which sucks cause we grew up with her as an aunt and like her too, and now we don't really get to see her. But we're in close touch with her kids (not by him), and they're all great as well. I know a few of my second cousins, even.

I don't communicate well or frequently in my long distance relationships with any of them (parents, still happily married, and sister, 3 years older and also happily married, included), but that's never a problem and it's all lovely when we're actually together.

Sorry. I'm absurdly lucky for all of it in this day and age.
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"Worlds turn the new machine to thee. To thee. Though, thine the new machine space."
-Kurt Schwitters, 1919

[Dracko]

It's hardly something you need to apologise for.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Rud13]

[Swimmy]

I hadn't seen the pictures before, Rud13. You weren't exaggerating, that really looks like an unbearable mess.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[Toto]

I'll start off by saying that I'm ridiculously close to my parents. I never really had anyone else around, as a child; my cousin left Australia for Holland when I was about 8. My Uncle lived with my mother, father and I until recently when he left to live in Lebanon.

I lived with my mother and father togetheruntil 2003, when they split up in a messy divorce. Now I live primarily with my father, and perhaps 2-3 days a week at my mothers apartment, where she lives with her boyfriend. In my childishness, I resented her boyfriend for a while, but I have recently come to the realisation this is useless. However, after giving him a chance it really seems that he's a bit of a knob, in some respects, and so I am neutral towards him.

I love my mother, perhaps a little bit too much, but I grew up in a masculine household. In my memory, I was raised by my father. My mother apparently did a lot of the raising before I was old enough to remember, but from a certain point it was always my father with whom identified with.

My Father can be very harsh, but he is complete in his love for me. Now that he has gone to China for a few months, I realise how complete he was. It's a very difficult standard to compete with, and my mother knows this, and got a bit upset at me recently for assuming (rightly) that I compare her and her lifestyle too often to that led by my father. I dislike her fragility sometimes, coming from a masculine household of strength, but I acknowledge and understand that this is not a good thing.

I have a Aunts and Uncles all over the world. The US, Holland, Germany, England, Iran (of course), Lebanon. I have met all of my Mothers sisters, a number of my Dads brothers, and a cousin here or there.

Rather un-interesting I know, but a small insight, I guess.

[Pink Teddy Bear]

So I tried to ask this girl out yesterday, but it turns out she was 16, and that's NO GOOD. I swear, she didn't look 16, I swear it!

(I'm 20 by the way).

[Dracko]

Where do you live?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dhex]

regardless of location he is making the right choice.
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[Dracko]

Highly likely, yes.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[ryan]

To be fair, it's hard for ladies to resist a pink teddy bear. You're almost cheating.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[helicopterp]

Pink Teddy Bear, was the girl your cousin?


BECAUSE THIS IS THE RELATION THREAD NOT THE RELATIONSHIP THREAD COME ON!


that's not real anger or anything, but don't let it happen again.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[kirkjerk]

I do ok with mine.

My dad died when I was 15 or so. My folks were ministers ("officers") in the Salvation Army, my mom still is a Major.

No siblings. My friend pointed out I probably have a mom who is used to being obeyed, and I'm probably jumpier than I realize to the whims of her and my Aunt. It's a bit of a matriarchy.

Anyway, I'm tempting fate a bit by moving into an Au Pair aparttment in my Aunt and Uncle's brownstone. Cheap rent, keeping rent money in the family, able to help them out a bit (my Uncle's getting a little forgetful), great location, helping stake my claim to a building I'm going to inherit a piece of someday, etc. But definitely a small risk of "failure to launch" syndrome, or something -- I've been married, divorced, owned a house, sold a house, but still, when you move in w/ your relatives, even if its more for their benefit than yours, it can be a little odd.

But yeah, those relations are pretty good.

There are some cousins we get along with. Less so my dad's side, since a lot of 'em are roughnecks from Ohio. But even then there's a cousin in DC who's raising a family and is an upright guy, and we're friendly if not super-close.
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=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

[Harveyjames]

[Pink Teddy Bear]

Oh, I mistook it...............sorry.

It won't happen again.

[Dracko]

No normal human being could get mad at a pink teddy bear.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"