Someone really went in on my personal life, haha. Okay, bring it on.

I was reading your blog and you talk about how you have a sister who isn’t related to you. How does that work for you? Do you have no romantic feelings? How do other actual family members take it? I guess I’m asking about the overall dynamic of your relationship. I know this guy who is really close to me but I don’t really “like like” him. Is it okay to call him a brother? Is it worth it? People automatically think we should date and stuff like that but idk.

Fine. Since you asked, I have to be honest: I don’t know how our relationship works completely. Sometimes I look at it as a selective relationship. She’s my sister but I shift and say friend when it’s convenient or appropriate.

For example, when filling out a job application, you may run into a question of something like “do you have relatives working for some other company that is a rival of ours?” and I say no. Fact is, we both work in retail. I got my job after hers and I said no, no relative of mine works in retail in direct competition of yours. That whole “conflict of interest” stuff.

I treat her like my sister but, the world doesn’t care unless it’s blood or paperwork involved.

What I mean is, from a “legal” standpoint, we have nothing to do with one another. In the end, the only two people that believe in this relationship are she and I. It seems to work for us at this time though I know for a fact there are people that believe we are an…item.

See, there are things I would do with my bio sisters that I would think twice about doing with my “adoptive” sister. Hugging and other forms of physical contact to show affection are avoided on my part simply out of fear for what people will read into. For her sake, since she’s not exactly single, I would just want to avoid any confusion.

Part of the issue is it’s not really a big established fact that the two of us are siblings. I don’t think we need to broadcast it, but I think ignorance of the reality we live in leads people to assume something fairly logical about us. We hang out at church all of the time. Shoot, she sat with me and my bio sisters in church throughout her childhood. Like, we’ve been seen together for years and it doesn’t register for everybody.

The question about romantic feelings. Okay, well, I have to admit there is something there for me. It’s nothing serious but I think because I am fully aware that we are not actual biological siblings, I sort of just allow those feelings to come and go. We both seem to understand that anything can happen. I don’t know how she feels but if I had to guess, it’s extreme platonic.

When dealing with blood relatives, I refer to her as my friend. Yeah, I do. It feels a little weird to say this person is my sibling because then they would be related to her as well but not really and it’s just somewhat awkward to me. I have run into cases where I tell relatives “she’s like a sister to me” and then they find it very important to remind me that “she’s not really your sister”.

But, that’s the thing, she IS my sister. One of these days I’m gonna talk about how blood just isn’t enough for me. I consider this girl more family than actual family. Most of us have people like that in our lives. It just happens.

For you and your friend, I can only give you my opinion based off of my real life experience, as you are aware of. My sister does this better than I do but you will simply have to ignore what others say. The relationship you have is your own. If your love is at a platonic place, then that’s where it is. Don’t worry about if that’s right or wrong. Don’t worry if that’s considered normal or not.

My sister and I have an understanding of our relationship and we’re comfortable in it. I think the moment we allow what others think about is determine what we do will ruin our relationship. I think that’s the same for you.