I knew how you felt...
By ElicBxn
@ElicBxn (63235)
United States
March 11, 2010 9:08pm CST
My niece was here over Christmas and, among other things, she was celebrating her graduation from college.
To celebrate this, she wanted to eat at a certain restaurant and she wanted to invite her uncle from her mother's side.
Now, her mother is the eldest and this uncle is the youngest of the 4 siblings.
This uncle is now a doctor.
I have met "Uncle Bob" (not his name) on 3 prior occasions.
Once was the first time I ever met my brother's ex, and the rest of her family, shortly after they got engaged. The second was at the wedding and the last was at my niece's graduation from high school party.
So, this is really the first time I've managed to actually talk to him - ever.
He barely remembered me, but I told him that I remembered him pretty well from that first meeting.
He looked at me puzzled.
"Yeah, you were, what? 16?"
"That'd be about right," he agreed.
"And the last place on EARTH you wanted to be was with your family at the River House that Thanksgiving."
He gave me a searching look. "Yeah."
"You would've rather have been back home with your friends."
"Yeah..."
Now he was looking at me like I was some kind of alien.
"I knew what you were going thru. Family was too boring, you wanted to be with your friends."
"How do you know this?"
"Oh, I may have been grown, but I knew what you were going thru. You were there because the family required it, so was I. I had to meet you sister sometime, and the rest of the family eventually, my parents thought this was the best chance we'd get before we got into all the wedding stuff."
So, when you were a teen, did you prefer to hang with your friends or family?
Honestly, as a teen, I spent a lot of time in my room because I had so few friends - but I'd've rather been out at the stable.
7 people like this
20 responses
@bounce58 (17387)
• Canada
12 Mar 10
I had a lot of friends when I was in high school. And I also spent a lot of times in their houses. At Christmas is when we're supposed to have our family dinner. And we were all required to be around. Sometimes we would be at a friends house, quickly go home for the family dinner, and then run back to the friends afterwards.
That was then. Now, I would rather be with my parents and brother and sister every special occasion. But I can't because they are half way around the world.
@ElicBxn (63235)
• United States
12 Mar 10
I never had more than a few friends at a time, and we were all expected to be at our own families houses for holidays.
Now, I remember sitting for a friend of my sister's during Hanukkah so her parents could go out afterward and we had dinner with them. It was interesting...
1 person likes this
@PurpleTeddyBear (6685)
• Canada
12 Mar 10
I can relate bounce, it really stinks when you have no family close by and you can't spend holidays with your family as you would like! BUT I do have my own family now so spending the holidays with my hubby and our girls is great too!
1 person likes this
@Hatley (163781)
• Garden Grove, California
12 Mar 10
hi elicbxn I was a loner as a teen but I would probably have rather bveen outside doing something , anything rather then being at some family function with o
lder people I did not even know doing all the polite stuff us teens were supposed to do at family functions.he he.
lder people I did not even know doing all the polite stuff us teens were supposed to do at family functions.he he.2 people like this
@ElicBxn (63235)
• United States
12 Mar 10
I was also a loner, but I could do family things well enough - at the house. Going to other people's, now that was a different matter. I actually did all right with older folks, but I was never comfortable with strangers.
If I could, I would retreat to my room, where my books and my puzzles and stuff were.
1 person likes this
@Lakota12 (42600)
• United States
12 Mar 10
My family live in Utah HUbbies family in Tenn.
My family has family reunions hubbies dont.
And for 20 yeaqrs home was in Tenn altho we traveled the states for work.
Then we gave Utah a try adnit came down that I had to INVITE the sis and brother and thier familys to a cook out before we all got together.
In Tenn ya dont wait for an invit ya show up more food gets put on the grill lolol.
Here we have to INVITe people for cook out! no one just drops in boy the differents of 1800 miles huh?
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63235)
• United States
12 Mar 10
all my extended family was 1500 miles away in New Jersey, so I barely know my cousins beyond my first cousins
so it was just our little family and some friends of my folks sometimes - they mostly had kids about our ages
and since most of our early contacts were thru the people Dad worked with, our circle outside of the neighborhood was rather limited at first
@scarlet_woman (23465)
• United States
21 Mar 10
um..as a teen?
i actually spent a lot of time by myself,drawing or wandering around town (parks,beach,etc).i guess you could say i was anti-social at the time.i just didn't want to hang with people.
1 person likes this
@scififan43 (2434)
• United States
29 Jul 10
this sounlds alot like my teen years. I had very litle friends and do not run around with other my age. I did tend to spend time with family when we had get togethers. but as I got older, I blossem out.
@lilybug (21107)
• United States
12 Mar 10
When I was a teenager I spent most of my time that I was not in school working or hanging out with the people I worked with after work hours. I still went to family gatherings where I was expected to be though. I had lots of cousins my age though, so it was not too bad. I still would have preferred being with my friends.
1 person likes this
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
• United States
12 Mar 10
I preferred to hang out with my friends that's for sure. I ditched my family after my hs graduation because a guy I really liked from work @ a few others said they'd come and they didn't so I was really upset. I should of stayed with my family afterall I didn't get my graduation gift from my Dad's side because of it. That's a 17yo for ya.
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63235)
• United States
13 Mar 10
That's the pits when "friends" said they'd do something and not do it.
My roomie, because of her vision, would have certain, so called, friends do that, and there wasn't much she could do about it because she was stuck at her place because she can't drive.
She told me that one of the things she really liked about me, is if I said I'd do something we either did it, or if something came up, I'd ALWAYS call her as soon as I knew and cancel.
Also, she knew that if she had an emergency, she knew if I could, I would drop everything and come.
needless to say, she finally ditched those friends!
@dragon54u (31636)
• United States
12 Mar 10
I preferred to spend time in my room, like you, but once I started driving I spend a lot of time walking in the woods and finding lovely old cemeteries. You'd be a good mom, since you're one of the few that seem to remember how they felt as teenagers!
1 person likes this
@commanderxo (1494)
• Canada
14 Mar 10
The friends that my parents had me meet, wound up becoming very good friends of mine...and vice versa.
I had so many friends as a teen, I doubt I could count them all.
As a grown-up.......
I have myLot.
cdrxo
1 person likes this
@Ingkingderders (3832)
• Philippines
12 Mar 10
Hmmm. When I was a teen, I wanted to be with my friends and my boyfriend every time, sometimes family is okay, but not all the time. Hehehe. My dad really focuses on family time, he had always showed us that family is really important, and that's why now that we're older, we appreciate all the family gatherings, and we are really close with our cousins.
I guess all teenagers is always either out of the house with their friends, or locked in their room listening to loud music. All of us have been there definitely.
@cerebellum (3863)
• United States
13 Mar 10
When I was younger I wanted to be with my friends most of the time. I only had a few close friends, but we were together almost all of the time! I wasn't very outgoing and didn't talk much to anyone else.
When I was very young, my parents divorced and my brother and I stayed with my father.
The family functions we had to go to were my mothers side. My father was an only child, so we didn't have family on that side. When we would go to family gatherings I always wanted to hang out with my mother, because I never saw her. She would tell me to go play with my cousins. I always felt different from my cousins. Divorce wasn't as common as it is now. When I got older I would make up excuses not to go to weddings and other family functions. My friends were from messed up homes also and I felt more at home with them.
@optomyst (47)
• Denmark
12 Mar 10
I always loved to go to family gatherings when I was young. My Mom has four siblings and my Dad has five, all of whom are married and have kids. We cousins used to have a blast with each other and daring each other to do who knows what. One of my cousins even cut a huge chunk out of my Great-Uncle's hair without him noticing. I would have missed a classic moment if I had chosen to be with friends instead of going to a family party.
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63235)
• United States
13 Mar 10
Going actually to the extended family things wasn't too hard, because we weren't with our friends then - since we had to travel 1500 miles to New Jersey to see the extended family. I do rather remember that my brother would've liked to gone back to Texas when we stopped in New Jersey for another 10 days after we got back from our 3 week European tour. He was 16 and getting to be a bit of a bore - funny thing tho, he had to spend the visit with our first cousin on mom's side and his mom was something of an opinionated beast - he told us that she nagged him to get a hair cut (remember - this was 1968...)
@danishcanadian (28953)
• Canada
12 Mar 10
Maybe our shared first name means "spends teen years in room." Me too!! i was not interested in people at all, and prefered to spend time with my books, and my computer, and my dog. No interest at all in associating with my peers, and the few friends i did have were a lot older than I was. I still have those friends, and they're still older. LOL
1 person likes this
@recycledgoth (9894)
•
12 Mar 10
I was definitely a loner during my teenage years, an overweight, spotty teenager has little chance to shine as little miss popular so I spent a lot of my time in my room either reading or writing. I wasn't too keen on spending time with my family though, they all had other things to do and family meals were torture on occasion.
@PurpleTeddyBear (6685)
• Canada
12 Mar 10
As a teen I did have a lot of friends but because I was so sad all the time and didn't know why until I was diagnosed with bi-polar later on I too spent a lot of time alone in my room. If my parents announced that they were going away for the weekend and taking my brother with them I would get so happy and as soon as they left I would have a manic episode until they came back home. I didn't have parties, or friends over, or anything I was just happy to be alone! I LOVED being alone, but in the really depressed times I didn't and that was when I spent a lot of times with friends BUT I think I did really well in the aspect that I was always there when my family needed me and I NEVER ditched them for my friends!
@ANTIQUELADY (36440)
• United States
12 Mar 10
I think any teenager had rather be hanging out w/their friends. I know when i was a teenager my familywas the last people i wanted to hang out with except for my sister & my bigmama. I loved being w/them.
@paula27661 (15811)
• Australia
12 Mar 10
I don’t have many good memories from my teen years. I only had one friend who was a little odd to say the least, possessive and odd! I used to be made to attend family things which I hated because I did not have a good relationship with my parents and family functions usually only consisted of us getting together with this other family my folks were friendly with because we had no relations in Australia. The other family had five kids and they were all made to attend and the lot of us used to look miserable wishing we were somewhere else. I am not going to ever do that to my daughter!
1 person likes this
@besthope44 (12123)
• India
24 Apr 10
Well i am bit reserved at my school and very selective about my friends. I always do select them matching my wavelength. So any hangouts its with those 2 or 3 friends only.
1 person likes this
