Why Friends gives us the wrong idea of what life will be like in our 20s
I can’t remember the first time I watched Friends. I think, like most millennials, endless reruns permeated my soul during my childhood until I reached the age where my mother allowed me to stay up and watch the final seasons of Friends when they aired – what a novelty!
Having seen a show like this at such an impressionable age (I was 11 when the final season aired), it served as a blueprint for what I thought adult life would be like. how. Well, I thought, when I’m in my 20s (an age that seemed very far away at the time) I’ll live with my best friend in a nice apartment, my best friends will live in across the hall and we’ll spend time together. our days at the coffee shop while I eased my way up the career ladder (I imagined myself as Rachel, of course).
David Schwimmer shares the most tender photo with Jennifer Aniston (and fans are now even more desperate for the pair to become an item)
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Our friends told us that life would be like that, but now, at 27, watching the Friends Reunion special, I realized – like so many others – that my 20s were far from the ideal we were sold. The life that Friends have drawn for us. Are not. exist. exist.
Firstly, who has time to sit at a coffee shop all day? Does Joey just sit there when he’s not auditioning hoping other people will stop by? Even if we have to believe that this was before they all went to work or after, most cafes close late in the afternoon and who has time to go to a cafe at 7am to chat? while the rest are there. Are you frantically trying to stick to your pre-work fitness and skin care regimen?
Additionally, it was unheard of for six friends to be able to arrange their schedules to hang out together all the time. Coordinating a schedule with one friend is difficult enough, let alone five other friends. However, since they seem to be a close-knit circle and have no other friends, it makes sense that they prioritize hanging out with each other. Also, the fact that they live so close to each other also makes this plausible. They clearly don’t have to struggle with housing issues in London, which makes some friendships feel like long-distance relationships.
Then there’s the fact that Rachel, in particular, seems to pick a career and rise to seismic heights within a few years (eventually she even gets the chance to go to Paris with her job, which which I will never forgive her for refusing). Likewise, when we meet Ross, he’s already an established paleontologist but also quickly rises through the ranks to become an NYU professor – a truly impressive achievement. While some of Monica’s career failures are shown, most of the time she finds herself running her own restaurant, a demanding job that makes us question how she Does she have time to see her friends when she’s definitely working off schedule? While advancing your career is an important part of your 20s, even though Friends makes it look easy, in reality it takes years of effort to reach the top of your life. play.
As much as I (deeply) loved Friends, the show did not reflect the experience of being in my 20s. In particular, as I entered my late 20s, I noticed a large number of friends moving away from London, to the different countries either to return to their homeland or to settle down with a partner. Large gatherings of friends, although they were impossible in the past year in any case, were few and far between and I was lucky if I got to see even one of my friends IRL every once in a while we