There are a few possibilities. For one thing, maybe your friends and family are people with weak character and incapable of wishing you well. Whereas your associates may be very strong people who want everyone to experience success.

On the other hand, the opposite may be the case. Perhaps your friends and family are concerned that your dreams are unrealistic and may lead to disappointment or even financial ruin. They may care enough about you to not want to see that happen to you, and they are intimate enough with you to tell you so. They may also fear that your failure could become a burden on them. But your associates are at an emotional distance. They have no vested interest in your success, and they aren’t looking for any kind of negative confrontation, so perhaps they take the easy path of positive support.

Regardless of the situation, I don’t believe this represents a universal truth, as the question seems to assume. Some people, conversely, have very supportive families but come into contact with more toxic personalities as they go about their lives.

Well really only you can answer that question and the best way I know for you to answer this question for yourself is to take a closer look at the people that surround you look closely at your family members and look closely at these so-called strangers that have been helping you and compare the differences just because someone is your family doesn’t necessarily make them good people or make them good for you maybe these so-called strangers you are referring to are just more kind hearted caring loving people then your family is or maybe they care more about you than your family does is why they are more willing to help you win your own family won’t even try but I don’t know I’m just speculating because only you know the true answer so examine these people thoroughly and you will figure out why these so-called complete strangers are more willing to help you then even your own family best of luck

Perhaps you mean acquaintances. But still we can’t know the lengths strangers or acquaintances would go to support us as we do our family (people in our lives? huh?)

I’ll get to your larger point in a second, but find myself caught in the assumption made re: the support level of others we don’t know is better than those we do.

Strangers or acquaintances probably do seem more willing to help/more kind than family because sdtangers dont know we lied last week. They don’t know we didn’t call back that family member (now less kind) when we said we would. Perhaps, we appear better people to newbies because they don’t know our full history.

This is a fairly loaded question with plenty of possible answers. I will attempt to view it from more than one angle.

One possible reason that you believe strangers help you more than family is because you feel like they do. This is purely based on perception. For example, say you’re family doesn’t help you out when your car breaks down or can’t take you down to work one day or a doctor’s appointment another. Your family can’t always be there to help you out with the smaller problems you tend to face every day. But maybe they are there to help you face the bigger problems. Problems strangers cannot help you with. So, give it some thought: are strangers actually helping out more than your own family, or are they just helping you out with the small things more often?

Another possibility could simply be: strangers do help you more than family in the literal sense. This could be for several reasons. Again, maybe the things you need help with are small and strangers are perfect for those types of jobs! Or perhaps you are not on good terms with you family so they do not feel obligated to help you out of a rough situation. Your family may also be dealing with their own hardships at the same time you are dealing with your own.

It’s important to take help where you get it, if you absolutely need it. I’m not sure it matters where it comes from. Keep perspective about your family though: maybe they help you out more than you realize or maybe they’re drowning in their own miseries.

😰🥀Yeah I for one is experiencing this but i might as well change the word stranger to friends….the aftermath of it might be a mystical intuition and chaos that I can’t explain myself all I know is it is God’s divine blessing to me so I just Pray🙏 and thank God for these friends or strangers who in one way are helping me at this point in time…on the other hand I have no remorse with my family not helping me cause much more they need help…so my Dear⚘ i wish if i didn’t answer your question I hope you base it on my story we are standing on the same level of situation and am just giving you my reaction🖐💃

Wonderfully yours💕

Every time I met a stranger I want him/her to like me.

I smile, I make jokes and compliments.

I make an effort. Just like in any relationship, at first you put tremendous energy trying to figuring out how the other person works, reacts, loves, communicates.

My family is and will be the longest relationship of my life. My father, mother and little brother know me and I know them. As you know time is a dangerous guest in your home. You begin to take your loved ones for granted.

You don’t call that much.

You don’t go home more than 6 times a year.

You slack off because they will not leave you for being neglecting. They are the people who will always love you. How convenient it is.

It’s like being the biggest asshole and your significant other would always come home smiling, making dinner, the dishes and giving you a foot massage every night.

No one would complain about your behavior.

I read somewhere that by the time we graduate from high school, most of us would have reach 80% of the time we’ll ever have with our parents. I can’t stop thinking about it.

They are happy every time I go home. They’re just so happy to spend evenings in my room, all of us watching TV and laughing at dumb TV commercials. I love my brothers hugs. It maybe time for me to do my part, to make an effort.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to call my mom.

M.

People live according to their programmed beliefs and concepts. If they don’t believe they could achieve something they don’t have the beliefs inside of themselves to support you. It is best, when pursuing your dreams to seek out examples of those who have gone before you and to work hard to believe in yourself no matter who else does. You will end up “dragging them up” rather than allowing them to “drag you down.”

When I quit my engineering career, gave up my college education, and followed my heart to become an intuitive and spiritual instructor, I lost all but one friend and my family thought I was crazy. I did it anyway, and now I have many true friends, and a very loving relationship with my family. It took time, but if you follow your path and find your joy in life, others who want that will take note and want to know how you did it :)

Simple answer.

Start speaking your mind.

No-one truuuly gets on with everyone 100% - my best friend in the entire world, I absolutely hate it when he starts talking about motor racing. He knows I hate it and my eyes glaze over and I fall asleep. But he knows not to talk about it with me now.

Also, lower your expectations. Don’t expect people to think the way that you do. It’s a really really good thing to help others and be there for people. Just don’t expect that back from anyone. They owe you nothing. That way you won’t be disappointed.

Be happy by yourself. A good 30% of my life is spent on my own. I love it. I’m my best friend in the entire world to be with. Friends are important, yup, but focus on what you like to do a little more in life - then when you do have time for friends you’ll appreciate those bonding times far more.

I have about three friends I can rely on. And that’s good for most. You’ll only ever meet two or three people in your life that you’ll truly be able to rely on. Learn to spot those people!

I have wondered about this phenomena myself, or its corollary, which is “Why does it seem easier for me to love others than to love my family.”

I clearly don’t know you or your family, so obviously I can only comment based on my general experience with life. My experiences may be completely different than your specific experience though.

When we are with others (could be friends, strangers, co-workers, etc.), we are generally on our best behavior. We’ll be extra polite and courteous. We might offer to help them some way. Some might call this a type of love, and perhaps that is not completely wrong, but I would call these interactions showing kindness.

I think it can sometimes be easier for us to be more kind to those other than our family. Others may not expect much from you, so showing kindness may impress them, and it may cause them to express gratitude to you or to reciprocate your kindness. Eventually, this could lead you to conclude that others (even near strangers) “give you more love” than your family. Perhaps with others, we tend to focus more on giving, helping, and serving.

With family, on the other hand, we may have higher expectations of each other. With these higher expectations (that may often even be unspoken expectations, where we assume that others must know what we need), the likelihood of disappointing each other is greater than it would be with others. Even when we make an effort to be kind or to show love to family, it may be perceived as acting out of duty or just fulfilling an obligation. As a result, the recipient may not respond as favorably as a stranger would. Without any positive feedback from the recipient, the “giver” may be less inclined to act lovingly in the future. Perhaps with family, we tend to focus more on receiving than giving.

So, in families, we need to make even a greater effort to be appreciative of each other, and we need to be deliberate about showing that we love one another.

People usually do things based on their beliefs and outlook on life. If a person doesn’t have dreams and goals for themselves, it’s very difficult for them to support and be enthusiastic about someone else’s dreams.

Another reason could be that people are just jealous of another person’s success and don’t want them to succeed.

The third reason is that life is set up a certain way… and part of the reason is so that you can struggle in pursuit of your dreams. If achieving your dreams was easy everybody would do it. In that context you may find that even people that you expect to help you may disappoint you. The purpose is to teach you certain lessons which may include, learning to depend on yourself more than you depend on others.

Wisdom suggests that in all relationships, we should seek to understand first, then to be understood. It is not so important to agree or disagree. Understanding is what matters. The more you learn to understand others, the more you will learn how to help them understand you, and in doing so, agreement and disagreement will take care of themselves.

We live in a great time of new freedoms, new openness, new connections. The world keeps getting smaller, with more and more different cultures and peoples interacting and intermixing. This freedom and diversity is beautiful, it is powerful, and it is healthy and good, for each of us, for the collective, for our economies and our justice and our wellbeing. But, it comes at the price of one very important social idea: Tolerance. So our ability to tolerate differences is critical to supporting open and free societies.

Tolerance of differences is also important in relationships. We tend to think that its our shared interests that make for great friendships, and that is part of friendship, but ultimately we are all different, unique, and it is our ability to share life while also being different and tolerating differences that make us far more interesting and fun to be around. who wants to be with a know-it-all? Who likes to hang around with a perfectionist and critic? Even in things we share, whether it be food, sports, entertainment, work or adventure, we each have our own individual differences of opinions and viewpoints, and we risk poisoning the part we share if we don't show a healthy tolerance for the differences within.

Learn to understand your friends, and how to accept them for who they are. Have your opinions and your ideas, but do not demand or even expect everyone to agree with you. Influence with positive energy, caring and openness, and choose your battles carefully. Know where to draw the line on your most critical, essential values and preserve those, but beyond that, let life's variety and diversity be a gift of learning and sharing strengths, not a place of arguments and conflict and weakness.

There could be many things implied by differences in behavior. Lets start with some possible reasons for the differences:

1. Some things are inappropriate to discuss in polite company. It’s okay to ask your mother about some bodily function or other, but highly inappropriate to ask a stranger on a train.
2. Privacy. There are simply some things that you do not wish a stranger to know about you for safety or other reasons. You would trust your friends with your address and phone number but, you would be unlikely to give it to the hotdog vendor you buy your meals from.
3. Social norms. In many societies assumed familiarity is truly rude. Addressing people by first name or without a title are some examples.

Now with just those three examples, we can assume that people will act very differently when among strangers than with people close to them. It is normal to be more reserved and adhere to customs or traditions in a public or work environment.

People who do not act differently in either social situation are either inordinately reserved with the people close to them, or are overly gregarious in public. They could have trust issues or no sense of reservation among strangers.

It is not to say that either type of behavior is innately wrong, but society being what it is, will always gravitate toward people who adhere to the status quo.

I think the answer is relative (no pun intended). I love the experiences I share with my family and friends, but there are times that I find sharing some experiences with strangers are very uplifting.

For example, in 2022 I hiked the Camino de Santiago with two friends (keep reading), from St. Jean Pied de Port (France) to Santiago de Compostela (Spain), a distance of 500 miles. We backpacked for 34 days. It was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Much of the time my friends were nowhere in sight, meeting only at the hostels we lodged at at the end of each day. So very often, if there was anyone around, they were strangers to me. For someone who considers himself an introvert, that can be a little stressful. But I got used to it.

In fact, I treasured those times. Even though everyone walks the Camino for their own reasons, pilgrims along The Way are united by the experience. I met people from all over the world. Sometimes language was a barrier to in-depth conversations, but even then we could share a laugh or an amazing landscape with just a glance. Those connections are unexpected, and I found them to be some of my best memories of the adventure.

And the times I was alone I often found myself with a stranger. I got to spend time in my own head, without distraction, travelling through an unknown land with a path that lead me through some amazing terrain, through rural villages, some cities, into ancient churches and over Roman bridges. It was sad to arrive at our destination on the last day. Many of the people who had once been strangers had evolved into friends. I will never forget them.

In September my same two companions and I will walk the Camino Portuguese from Porto to the same destination in Spain. I am eager to transform people I have never met into some of my most lasting memories.

“ Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere. And sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.”

Buen Camino.

Most of the friends in this world is passer-by. Friends joke each other, poke fun at each other, but they can never be as close as blood relationship. In the end, they’re different people from different family backgrounds. I think US is quite a good example that majority of people can get along with everyone very easily, but they tend to have not true friends because friendliness is kind of requirement to deal with mulit-cultural society to not to offend anyone in order to avoid cultural confilicts and whatnot. On the other hand, other cultures that feel distant in the first meeting like Japan, Germany, Sweden, and Canada tend to have more true friends even they don’t befriend with everyone.

Grab someone who seems nice and tell them exactly what you want from them. Tell them that you love to help them out, too. Say thank you and please. Then you have a friend.

Perhaps it's good to accept that you cannot be fully understood- cared for. Do you understand yourself all the time? Do you always care about yourself (-the way you deserve to be)?

There's a lovely story I picked up from a movie (forgot the title, I'll get back on that):

A tiny yellow baby chick was shivering in the cold. It saw a cow and shouted "Oh dear cow, please help me, I'm so cold that I could die!". Then the cow wandered over and shat all over the chick. Now the chick was warm, but it wasn't happy. It saw a cat and shouted "Oh dear cat, please help me, I'm covered in shit and I'm sticky and smelly all over!" Then the cat pulled the chick from the heap, wiped it clean and ate it in one gulp.

Never underestimate the people who cover you in shit. Friends sometimes know things about you that you don't know about yourself.
The people who get you out of shit and lick you clean can be worse.

There is a Christian equivalent to the story above: about Judas and Jesus. Jesus had to die. He couldn't not die. But it was really hard for him: he was sad and begged for his life. Judas made it easier for him by betraying him to the soldiers - it made him grief so much that Judas took his own life afterwards.

I think this is a great (dramatic/romantic) example of the best friend you could ever wish for.

Find support.
Therapists are people to whom you can talk. Therapists can help you to organize your life.

If a job is what you’re after, there are employment agencies available in many regions, who can help you to create a good resume and to find employers looking for people with your skill set.

If you need more skills and education, consider applying to college/university as a part-time student, apply to 1–2 courses to test the waters, see if something sparks your interest.

Some people benefit from joining a community. Usually some posts online, on social media apps, see if there’s an event happening in your area.

Starting from ground zero, so be patient with yourself, allow some time. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

My mother’s been supportive since the start. I was reading more than the average kid and at higher levels, even as a little tot. At age 7, when I discovered the joys of writing, I think she knew that’d be my life from then on. She wasn’t at all surprised when I chose English writing/editing as my college major; rather she helped me find the right school and pick the best classes for me. When I started job hunting, mom would pass along any advice/leads if she came across them and even asked her friends/co-workers for help. And nowadays, mom’s co-workers tell me how often mom brags about her kids.

My brother is cool with what I do. As I’ve been a bookworm all his life, I think he’d be shocked if I wasn’t in a career with that.

My grandfather and other relatives are supportive as well. They check in on me often, talk about my work and make sure things are cool. They all await the day I publish my first book (one day!)

The answer lies with you. It depends on the relationship you have with your friends/family and if this part is something you cherish the most and are afraid of judgements. We can’t get along with everyone in our lives, also our interests and ideals vary. In such moments, people we are familiar with don’t meet our needs and expecting them to will lead to disappointments. And we find company and understanding in strangers better than friends/family. Like meeting someone who gets your geekiness or running into a fellow sports fan. Of course, these are trivial examples. But the point is if the part of life is something close to the core of your identity and your loved ones don’t understand it, it can be disappointing. Sometimes they won’t understand that part of you because of their own shortcomings or it contradicts with the image they already have of you. In those moments, a random stranger offers more compassion than you’re looking for. So you are the only one who can decide the answer for this.