Is it normal to be closer to your friends than family?

I think It's normal. I share all of my secrets with my friends and constantly hang out with them. I barely visit my family and when I do it's awkward.

Sometimes your friends are your family.

It sounds like joining the military might be one good way out of that home situation, OP. I wish you the best!!

For me -- I really AM pretty close to both of my parents. They're divorced, and I'm not really close to my stepmom or stepsister but I do like them. I don't have any biological siblings.

But with extended family...I have tons of it and my friends are MUCH closer and more important to me. I have a close knit circle of girlfriends that have been in my life for 20+ years, and some are more like sisters to me. I would do just about anything for them and have even been there through death, childbirth, divorces, a huge tornado that took apart our town, and many crazy happenings. My husband has a similarly close group of guy friends and I'm getting to know them well and consider them close too. I'm even still in touch with a few of my guy friends I met through my ex husband, even though we divorced they were almost like brothers and I couldn't imagine never talking to them again!

I have one set of grandparents still alive, and I've NEVER been close to them. I am not that close with any of my aunts, uncles, or first cousins (and I have over 40 first cousins). I've always felt like a black sheep (agnostic, childfree by choice, fairly liberal, artsy & kind of eccentric) or actually in some cases I guess maybe a white sheep (graduated college, don't struggle financially). I can't really even relate to my cousins, they are all decades older or super Christian right-wing and only talk about their kids...not to mention our families (on both mom & dad's sides) were not that tight-knit when I was growing up so it feels fake to push a closer bond in my 30s.

It sounds like joining the military might be one good way out of that home situation, OP. I wish you the best!!

For me -- I really AM pretty close to both of my parents. They're divorced, and I'm not really close to my stepmom or stepsister but I do like them. I don't have any biological siblings.

But with extended family...I have tons of it and my friends are MUCH closer and more important to me. I have a close knit circle of girlfriends that have been in my life for 20+ years, and some are more like sisters to me. I would do just about anything for them and have even been there through death, childbirth, divorces, a huge tornado that took apart our town, and many crazy happenings. My husband has a similarly close group of guy friends and I'm getting to know them well and consider them close too. I'm even still in touch with a few of my guy friends I met through my ex husband, even though we divorced they were almost like brothers and I couldn't imagine never talking to them again!

I have one set of grandparents still alive, and I've NEVER been close to them. I am not that close with any of my aunts, uncles, or first cousins (and I have over 40 first cousins). I've always felt like a black sheep (agnostic, childfree by choice, fairly liberal, artsy & kind of eccentric) or actually in some cases I guess maybe a white sheep (graduated college, don't struggle financially). I can't really even relate to my cousins, they are all decades older or super Christian right-wing and only talk about their kids...not to mention our families (on both mom & dad's sides) were not that tight-knit when I was growing up so it feels fake to push a closer bond in my 30s.

The last paragraph sounds somewhat like my family. One side is extremely liberal and the other particularly my dad's parents (they make other conservatives in my family look like they are really left wing)
Whereas I'm pro pot and coca legalization, DGAD about gay marriage as long as they aren't making me pay for said liberal (that's an umbrella for everyone, hetero, trans, bi, and homo)
I tend to middle out between liberal and conservative on other issues like the military, economy, and social programs.

I live in southern Missouri in the Bible Belt where it is the norm to be conservative in general. In my family, my dad's side is basically super-stuffy people who are obsessed with $$ -- socially I don't think they really care one way or another on most issues, they just want whatever will give them more tax breaks. On my mom's side everyone is kind of half-a**ed religious and takes a lot of old school conservative stances on things and aren't very open to new ideas, for example they would probably die before they would ever vote pro-choice or eat healthier food or be friends with someone from the LGBT community. So I'm basically the odd man out culturally and politically, and I'm not even crazy-liberal. Fortunately I don't engage much with the rest of them and we're limited to niceties on the rare occasions we have contact.