Family: definition and feelings concerning

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I have two 'families'.

One is my blood family. I think about them rarely. I never knew them well. When it comes to contacting them I can't admit that I feel nothing for them. How can I explain that when people aren't in my life (and yes being on the net with them very much counts as having them in my life) they fail to exist for me? Why have I not contacted my family? I don't feel compelled to. I barely acknowledged most of them as family. I barely know anyone outside myself. I barely know me most of the time. Who I am. How can I be expected to know another? How can I reach out to my 'family' now when they are hundreds of miles away when I never felt compelled to do so when we lived in the same house? I don't know them. I can tell you only a few things and these aren't things that I cannot tell you about anyone. I never belonged in their world and they made me painfully aware of that at times. I cannot be myself with them.

My other family is my chosen family. My girlfriend and a few select beings that I've decided are my real friends. The people who know me and love and respect the person I am. The people I have real feelings for.

The world would have me on a guilt trip because I don't have much feeling for my blood family. We aren't close so I cannot see why. I don't feel the need for many relationships. I don't understand social groupings, including family. My chosen family is a group of my design and I think thats why I see it differently. That and I chose the people I wanted in my life. How many people have the chutzpah to do that?

I hate it when they say we need to bring back "family values". What do they mean by that, bringing back the time when what father said was final, he could use corporal punishment on the kids, the daughters married whoever was choosen for her and the wife and no one else had any voice, including the mother?

I think, on the contrary, it's time to change this whole definition of family. I've had strangers who treated me with more love than some of my family members. I haven't seen two of my sisters in 10 years, my father or paternal grandmother in five and I really haven't missed them all that much.

Blood may be thicker than water but at least water doesn't leave stains.