There’s something very scary about the word ‘relatives’. For me each phone call, gathering and meal together takes up like an entire week after, of getting over the conversations, opinions, and well, of course, their nosy questions. It usually gets quite toxic. Sadly, a lot of desis have known relatives who cannot live without interfering in others’ lives.
Some of them are even walking red flags, who scream toxicity. And a lot of people have been there, dealt with that. So watch out for signs.
1. “Relatives who hardly see you once in two years will come up and give you career advice, in a field/industry they don’t even work in.”
– Snigdha Nalini Oreya
2. “If they’re taunting you and not being helpful to you in anyway, just cut them off permanently. No use in keeping such hopeless people in your life.”
3. “My aunt thinks everything is a competition. You got a Fiat? Great, she got a Mercedes. She’s always one-upping.”
4. “Whenever they come over for dinner, they keep bringing huge glass-lock containers “for leftovers”, except they fill up their containers before anyone else has even had the first helping.”
5. “Every time I do something stupid or funny, my aunt says, “You’ll never find a husband.””
6. “I’ve had a couple of toxic incidents, the most notable being, when my sister decided to move to the US for her masters, my buas threw a collective tantrum that she should get married before she leaves the house.”
– loln00b
7. “My uncle acts like a know-it-all when it comes to technology, criticizes everyone’s taste in phones, and loudly plays Angry Birds in front of everyone while bragging about his scores.”
– welp42
8. “They only care about you getting married or giving birth. I was bombarded with questions about getting married since I was 20, and I finally did marry my partner of 5 years, few weeks ago at 30. I know what the next set of questions will be.”
9. “Bullshit questions like, kitne ka package milta hai?”
10. “Relatives who take pleasure in others’ misfortunes.”
You can always try and argue, but we know how that pans out.
Better — run away, block their numbers and never see them again.