Family vs Friends -- Who is more important?

[Nerevar]

Neither. I'll go with people with whom you work. An organization.

[The Small Hours]

Thoughts?

Did Bob bring you into this world, provide shelter/food/clothes, clean your shitty bum hundreds if not thousands of times, u get where I'm going. Family > friends

[Zoma]

Personally, I go with family. Friends come and go, any half-decent family is forever.

[Teamalice]

Personally, family is more important to me, they are the only people who have been there for me my entire life. I consider my husband family since we are married. Friends tend to come and go for me depending on the phase of life I am in.

As for Bob, we have no idea why his family does not like the girl he is dating. They may have a valid reason for not liking her.

Funny. My first thought it that Bob might be gay.

[IRunSoFarAway]

Honestly it depends which sucks more overall, some of my family I hate, some I love, it's the same for friends, but I don't hate any of them, I'd say their equally important for me.

[Deleted]

Who do you think Bob should choose?

His friends and his lover.

Honestly, it's situational but I'd chose who ever is more supportive, maybe even both, probably both. Situation, like I said. Though in this case, that you mentioned, OP, friends all the way.

Does family override any other relationships? Or are close friends another form of family? Should Bob cater to the wishes of his only family, or should he make his own decisions regardless of what they think?

Family doesn't and shouldn't override any kind of relationship, unless it's obviously an unhealthy one(as in, really bad, like drug stuff and so on), this applies to friends/lover too by the way.

You should be the one to decide who is the best for you, not your family and/or friends.

Refrained from voting since there's no in-between options.

[Neetz]

Did Bob bring you into this world, provide shelter/food/clothes, clean your shitty bum hundreds if not thousands of times, u get where I'm going. Family > friends

Family includes more to some people than just their mother or father, and some people don't have those at all.

[Deleted]

Did Bob bring you into this world, provide shelter/food/clothes, clean your shitty bum hundreds if not thousands of times, u get where I'm going. Family > friends

My father left me when I was 6. Even before that, he drank a lot and even took my little money to buy beer. He did call or come once in a blue moon until I was 12. But he never remembered my birthday, he never got me what I needed, he never payed almony or whatever it's called, he did it out of spite against my mother mostly. He invited me once or twice to the country where his mother, my grandmother lived. Though every time there he'd tell us how horrible my mother was. From when I was 13 he never contacted me anymore, ever. Though I got a mail one day from my half sister (whom he had also abandoned the same as me, but she managed to keep contact with his mother) telling me his mother told her that he couldn't contact me since we moved and changed phone numbers and stuff. A bunch of lies of course.

Now, saying that, how could I love someone like that more then I love my best friend, a person who stood by me when I was depressed, who helped me out, who remembered my birthdays and always had a nice thought, a person who liked to spend time with me for who I was and never lied to me?
So, my best friend and my mother are my most important people in the world. Everyone else, other family or other friends come after.

Neither. I'll go with people with whom you work. An organization.

No offense, but that's sad.

[Korgoth]

Blood. /thread

[Gandrake]

depends

there is no universal, one size fits all answer

i don't really know the people in my family and my friends are like brothers, so for me it's friends.

[K i s u]

"Bob" should do what makes him happiest and depending on if he can see a real possible future with that girl, no point in losing family over a fling of sorts.

For me, I would pick friends, I don't have much blood family and the friends I do have has become a replacement, they're my new family.

[Spectral]

Friends, of course. I really don't understand why, in the modern world, anyone would value people they happen to have a slightly higher genetic similarity with over people that they have explicitly chosen to be around.

[Morsker]

It depends entirely on whether the family is a positive experience or not. If its reason for disapproving of friends is that they do too much partying and neglecting health and education, then the family is more important. But if the family is abusive, or has been hijacked by some "orthodox" culture and cares about that culture more than its children, then people need to find support outside their family. It's much harder, but the option needs to be there, otherwise we could never make progress against abuse.