Every single one of us thinks that at least one of our family members is crazy. Most of us are correct. Families and their dynamics are complicated and impossible to explain to outsiders. If you have ever tried to introduce an outsider to your mess of a family, then you already know that only the brave should attempt it.

Never is the complexity or lunacy of your family as apparent as they are during family reunions. For whatever reason, you decide to go to these implosions waiting to happen. At least once you decided to bring along a friend or significant other. You only make that mistake once.

For whatever reason, most family reunions are rough. I have never really looked forward to one but I have a hard time avoiding them. Perhaps I am doomed with a sense of family loyalty or a belief that we are connected on some deep level that should be respected. Either way, I almost always end up at the family reunions thrown by my relatives whether or not I wanted to go.

The biggest reason why I do not enjoy family reunions is the sense of alienation I feel at them. I do not feel as though most of my relatives are like me. Our political and religious beliefs are somehow radically different even though we are genetically and socially connected. I think that these little get-togethers make me feel so strange because I do not connect with most of my relatives whether they are close or distant.

I wonder if this alienation is the reason that most people do not enjoy going to family reunions. If so, how can so many of us feel unrelated to our families? Is it possible that we are all so different from each other? Perhaps we are more alike than we would like to believe and it is the similarities that make us uncomfortable.

Maybe we see a little bit of our relatives in ourselves and for one reason or another we are not happy about that. Maybe our families point out to us the things about ourselves that we are not big fans of and the genetic relationship there makes us feel as though those things are permanent. I just do not believe that all of us can really be all that different from our families even though I know very few people who feel right at home at family reunions.