Chosen Family - Nov 7 2025

 

Chosen Family

Nov 7 2025

You find “your people”

without even looking.

Is it something in common?

Or is it difference that’s the draw;

seeking out people who complement you,

who match your weaknesses

with their strengths?

Your friends from college,

the ex you talk to

when things get hard,

the guys from the office

who go out for beers.

Your bosom buddies

    . . .  friend group

            . . . chosen family.

So when the mean girls

who admitted you to their circle

stop returning your texts

and get together without you

it feels like disinheritance;

the black sheep of the family

they pretend they don’t know. 

Or like being blackballed by your boss,

banished from your tribe,

ostracized

by high society.

Could excommunication  

be much worse?

Which is how you learn

who your real friends are.

Perhaps the activists

who circulate petitions

and run for student office.

Could be the theatre kids

or frisbee golfers,

the serious scholars

or football stars.

Or even the stoners and dealers

who smoke behind the bleachers 

while skipping class.

But more often than not, it’s the nerds.

Who never thought they’d find

others like them,

socially awkward people 

who collect gothic comics

love the same alternative bands.

Who welcomed them in

and felt like home.

Who were never cool

and never will be

but couldn’t care less.

This is the paradox of coolness;

because to be truly cool

you must be oblivious 

unself-aware.

There is no performing cool

cultivating cool

or aspiring to be.

And if you look cool, you’re probably not.

While nerds

are never imposters

untrue to themselves.

Which is the essence of cool, is it not?

Unconcerned with how you're seen,

never trying to be 

anyone but yourself. 

“Friend group” and “your people” are terms I've only encountered in the last few years. But they express a powerful concept, because they represent the satisfaction of some basic human needs: attachment, belonging, identity. Especially when your friend group becomes your “chosen family” (another relatively recent term, but with a longer history). Because chosen families are often closer than your genetically related none — the “accidental” family you happened to be born into. 

The poem took an unexpected turn when it got channeled into nerdom: a poem that started out with “friend group” ended up being about coolness. But since I identify as nerdy, I suppose it was headed there from the start. So either that and clever misdirection, or bad poetry that’s trying to do too much doesn’t know what it’s about.