well not only are you my lil faux brother, but you know i have several other friends who i consider my family.

and the reason such goes back to we were taught as children, "love your family and friends without them you have nothing."
If one has gone through troubles with their blood family, they look for what is missing, i.e. if one was neglected throughout his life from his/her mother, they would seek someone who not only are they friends, but fills in the missing piece that was gone for so long. the same goes with multiple family members. The most common is interest, if your family dislikes your interests, but your friends support you for what you enjoy, you feel more love through that than the neglect.

Which comes to what i previously mentioned, you can have friends and you can love them without the need of....well...crossing personal boundries >>;;. But! love is not just "oh like you lets go out" kind of thing, cause its more than that. The love you have for your family can be the same with your friends, which is why you make a faux family. And that feeling of that people care for you, even do everything just to see you smile, is far more important. Sad to say if people were this nice, we may have less depression and maybe less suicides. Since most of the time people do this because they dont feel love from anyone. trouble is some people just go blind from the neglect, which is why it can annoy a lot of people when you share your love to someone like this and instantly ignore and stay stuck in the dark. But for those that do listen will realize that there are others who care more than they could ever imagine.

Love can be the one thing that can bring happiness to a lot of people, And sometimes even a hug or showing care can help someone's morale

There's nothing "faux" about that, man. This was quite common in the South and the West up until very recent years; families had 'uncles' and 'aunts' who weren't related, sometimes grandparents who were lifelong multi-generational friends of the family. I can't have children myself; my two are 'adopted' teens, now grown, who had need for someone to lean on for 'dad stuff.' No blood relation, just love, support, mentorship, and a friendship that spans generations. I admit to being uncomfortable with the term "faux families" -- there's nothing "faux" about them, they're just mutual connections of love and commitment with a little less shared DNA.

I have family through marriage, too. Katya's father is very much 'Dad' to me, and her late mother was 'Mom' too. Some of her uncles, aunts and cousins are close to us, some aren't. Her half-brother, his wife and kids are similarly of mixed closeness; some chose to connect powerfully to us, some don't really want to think of us that way. It's all good.

How do such relationships develop? The same way any kind of love does. Acquaintanceship grows into friendship, which grows into kinship. Sometimes, the nature of that kinship takes a recognizable shape, and it feels more right to speak of it in those terms. It's organic, and it's neither legitimized nor refuted by others' opinions, just yours and the other party's.

One isn't a parent by biology; one is a parent by devoting one's life to supporting a growing child into adulthood, and an emerging adult into the world. The title 'Mom' or 'Dad' is earned by tenure and service, and so, I don't see why a biologically-unrelated person who gives that support to another person is less entitled to be 'Mom' or 'Dad' for the genetic difference. The same goes for 'Aunt,' 'Uncle,' 'Grandma,' 'Grandpa,' 'brother,' 'sister,' 'cousin,' or any other such title. Sometimes it's a neighbor who's there for us when we skin our knee, or a teacher at school, or a religious official, or a friend online. The love and support of these people may well be instrumental for us, and that makes them family.

I think human beings collectively are starved for collection, so yes, I absolutely think it's normal to seek out those connections when we lack them. Would it seem odd for a hungry person to seek out food, a cold person to seek out warmth? Security and belonging, love and acceptance -- these are basic human needs. We don't survive well without them.

The question "Is there really such a strong need for family?" is a complex one. If by that you mean "Is it crucial to have set people filling set roles in one's life," I would answer that this is less necessary than people think. People can survive with one parent, or with fewer extended family members, yes -- but they still need *someone* to love them, *someone* to be there and invest time and energy into them. You might think of this matter with this analogy: a person can survive without breakfast, without lunch, without dinner, without traditionally-structured meals at all, but he or she cannot survive without food and drink. A person can survive with a very unusual sleep schedule, some with many naps instead of one block of contiguous deep sleep, but a person cannot survive without sleeping. Similarly, a person can survive without the love and support of the people who combined their genes to bring him or her to life, but a person cannot survive without love and support.

Those of us without the things we need at hand go looking for them. To mock someone for needing those things is to suggest we ourselves don't need them, and that it's better to not need love than to need it and possibly lack it. In my nearly forty years on this planet, I can tell you that loving someone else is never a waste of time or energy, and that I have never been hurt by love -- by others' choices, by disappointments, by painful partings of way with people I love, but never, not once, by loving someone.

There is no "faux" family. Only people who need one other finding one another.

Er, starved for *connection*. I'm tired.

I'm not gonna lie: This was a great thing to wake up to. To read your response to the question I mean. <3

i like this more than what i said ^^

As per usual Dusty, you're informational to the point of being mind blowing @.=.@