If they’re toxic, bullies or abusive to you then you owe them nothing and should ignore it.
If it’s not any of the things I listed then sometimes you have to shut up and be nice to not ruin things for those around you that you do like.
this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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Tell them there is too large of an age gap and you cannot attend.
Wtf?
Op is oddly obsessed with age gaps in media, and guys being older virgins.
I don't know your situation or family, but I will say that I wasted way too many holidays on family. When I started doing Friendsgiving, I started enjoying holidays. Fuck family guilt when they're doing the things in your presence that make you miserable. Think back to how they treat you in such occasions, and decide if they're worth wasting a holiday on. Maybe they're worth a random weekend bbq but not Thanksgiving. Maybe they're not worth your time at all.
If you wouldn't be around a friend that treats you the way your family does, then your family are not your friends. And if they're not friends, what exactly are they?
Based on OP's post history, I would guess that they don't dislike their family, they're just indifferent towards them
If you don't wanna go, don't go. If you're worried about not "looking bad" (or just trying to avoid more criticism) you could go and leave very early. There's never really a right answer to these sort of things. It's all about what you want. What will make you feel the best?
I'll give an example about the decision process for my wife skipping a family event or not. She decided we'd skip Thanksgiving because she's made at her parents. And we did. But she decided to go to Christmas because she didn't want the feeling of being the daughter that skipped Christmas.
It's all about how bad the guilt is, whether you think you should move past the guilt, and what it is that your family has done to make you want to skip in the first place.