The funny thing about humans is that they like to be surrounded by friends and yet, they'd rather not be surrounded by their relatives. There's that clear distinction between relatives and friends. Most of the time, we (at least the Chinese in Malaysia) generally don't think of our relatives as our friends. We just regard them as well, our relatives.

What makes me say so? Well, we don't give them the same amount of comfortable space as we would our friends. Neither do we meet up with them for a meal without formality and ceremony. Cousins are the closest we'd get for friends. And still, we didn't grow up together nor work together.

We'd find that we probably e-mail, text, call and meet up with friends more times a day then we do our relatives... We could call up our relatives, but we just don't do so casually or often, now do we?

The only opportunity for us to keep in touch with our relatives (and realise they are growing in number) would be during special occasions. Like for e.g. Chinese New Year, and lately I've discovered, Weddings.

I've not talked to / e-mailed my aunts and cousins as much as I've had of late. It's wonderful!

I think there are five basic reasons why:

1. We didn't choose our relatives, but we certainly chose our friends
2. Most of them seem to be older than us, or younger... and those of the same age, are perceptively not interested in our friendship anyway and vice versa
3. Relatives seem to exist so that we know we belong somewhere, friends exist in our lives because we give them a sense of belonging
4. Secrets, fears and dark ambitions cannot be leaked into family life, but friends always understand, now don't they
5. There are simply too many relatives to take care of and less friends to worry about.

You know what's really weird? At the end of the day, people who are closest to us, start calling themselves our 'god-aunt', 'god-sis' etc... and they end up crossing from being our friends to becoming our relatives.

And I scratch my head in bewilderment because I thought friends were a more intimate concept than relatives.

Just some food for thought...