Why We Can’t Quit Our Family Friends

When Shazia Ahmad’s mother immigrated to Canada from Pakistan three decades ago, she didn’t know a soul. Her husband was often working, she was raising a young child, and she was still learning English. But slowly, she began befriending fellow Pakistani and Indian neighbors in a Toronto suburb, building a community that would feel like family.

For Ahmad, a busy lawyer and only child, her mom’s friends became “second mothers,” and their children the siblings she never had. When her mother died six years ago, they stepped in, checking in on her, making sure she ate, and inviting her over for holidays.

For many South Asians, the family friend occupies a peculiar space between friendship and kinship. They’re the aunties and uncles who watched us grow from children into adults. Their kids became our earliest friends. This Diwali season, amid all the “kalesh” (dramatic conflict), there’s no better reminder of the chaos that happens when extended family and friends reunite. There’s singing, dancing, arguing, gossiping, backstabbing, and more. So why do we keep coming back to the same people who can give you so much joy yet so much grief? The Juggernaut spoke to anthropologists, psychologists, and those who’ve ended and stayed in family friendships to find out.