The old adage "you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family?

I took a peek at the discussion going on regarding your question. 3 responses, and they made little or no sense either. There are two basic problems with your question: One, is that you said this statement about choosing friends but not relatives "...holds true for the majority."

Wherever did you get such an idea? It holds TRUE for EVERYBODY, no exceptions. That includes all the dropouts who are out there looking for the reincarnation of Jack Kerouac.

It's a no-choice thing, very much like it is either day time or it is nighttime, and just because it is daytime here and nighttime there makes no difference whatsoever. Your relatives are yours whether you like them or not, and your list of friends is only limited by your experience and preferences. Two, this half of the question has to do with something that is impossible, and that makes your question very problematic, indeed.

Just what would a world look like where you were required to be friends with so and so that you don't know and don't like, but not someone who may literally have changed your life for the better. What would you do then, make that benefactor a 'relative'? How do you go about doing that?

Actually that answer is considerably simpler to deal with than the one you asked. It points to the fact that these are just words: friends and relatives, and if you don't like the categories for the people in your environs, then you have the option of just simply switching categories. So, if you have a relative you don't like, you can either do what most people do and that is to simply avoid that person and re4nounce their very existence, or you can change their title to 'friend' and at that point simply stop being friends with them, and they will go away never to be heard from again.

Obviously, if you have a friend who is that important to you, it's an easy thing to start telling people that person is your brother, or your sister, or your favorite Aunt Harriett. That's the beauty of being alive, you can do darn near anything you want. Seems to me that is way better than the alternative.