[You know, boyfriends and girlfriends are gonna come and go, but this is for life!]
Friends opens with Monica coming to the rescue of runaway bride Rachel.
[Oh God Monica, hi!]
The image of Rachel in her wedding dress, choosing this new group of friends over her
fiancee, sets up the show’s central theme of the romance of friendship.
[Are you asking me to have a friend-naissance?]
[Sure?]
[Alright - although I don't think we really need one, baby, I've never stopped loving
you.]
Ross is also newly single in the pilot, and finds comfort in his group of friends in place
of his ex-wife.
In fact, it’s key that none of the six characters is in a serious relationship when the series
begins.
The show portrayed lovers as friends, and friends as the loves of each other’s lives.
Friends illustrates that friendship and romance are two interconnected sides of the same love
coin.
Throughout the show, we see familiar romantic behavior transplanted onto platonic situations,
and this makes us laugh.
[Oh I love you!]
[I love you too!]
The friends pay each other’s bills, [I'll just cover you for a while.]
[No, no.] own pets together, and share their possessions.
[I was thinking maybe we should start dividing up our stuff.]
There’s the exchange of jewelry as a token of affection, the expectation of being the
first to hear big news, [Ever since high school Rachel was the one person I told everything
to.] knowing the details of each other’s sex lives, [You know, I once dated this guy
who wanted to pretend that he was an archeologist, and that I was this naughty cavewoman whom
he unfroze from a block of ice.]
[Are you talking about my brother?]
[Yeah I didn't disguise that very well, did I?] and being mistaken for a couple.
[You know - my brother and his boyfriend have been trying to adopt for three years.
What agency did you two go through?]
At many points, characters use the language of romance or sex in innocent situations to
create gags.
This comedy technique relies on the fact that innuendo and double meanings are funnier than
saying something outright.
[How do you expect me to grow if you won't let me blow?]
[You know I don't have a problem with that.]
So using the language of couples to talk about friends is the basis of countless jokes throughout
the series.
Moving away from a roommate represents a breakup.
When Joey considers getting his own apartment in season 2, Chandler responds as if his boyfriend
has admitted to desiring someone else.
[Can we drop this?
I am not interested in the guy's apartment.]
[Oh please - I saw the way you were checking out his moldings.]
And Chandler’s new roommate Eddie is viewed as a challenge to Joey, as if he's a post-breakup
relationship.
[It’ll never last, he’s just a rebound roommate] Monica lies so Rachel won’t find
out about her going shopping with Ross’ girlfriend.
In this scene, the receipt that Rachel finds in Monica’s pocket is the telltale lipstick
on the collar, [One thing led to another, and before I knew it, we were shopping.
We only did it once.
It didn’t mean anything to me.
Rachel, I was thinking of you the whole time!] and characters’ jealousy suggests an expectation
of monogamous best-friendship.
[Whose eggs do you like better, his or mine?
Huh?]
[Well I like both eggs equally!]
[Oh, come on!
Nobody likes two different kinds of eggs equally - you like one better than the other, and
I want to know which.]
[Well what’s the difference?
Your eggs aren’t here anymore, are they?
You took your eggs and you left!
Did you really expect me to never find new eggs?]
Later in the series, Monica wants Rachel to mourn the end of their time living together.
[What is the matter with you?
Why aren’t you more upset?
Aren’t you going to be sad that we’re not living together anymore?
Aren’t you going to miss me at all?]
Her insistence on the magnitude of this event tells us that it truly is a kind of break-up.
[I mean, it’s the end of an era!]
[I know!]
It’s the end to the era which friendship came before romance.
Monica’s relationship with Chandler is replacing the intimacy that she and Rachel shared as
roommates, [When I take a shower, she leaves me little notes on the mirror.] and this taps
into a true insight that when our friends enter serious relationships we do lose them
a little to their romantic partners.
The two major successful love relationships in the show start as friendships illuminates
a key thesis of Friends -- that all the best love stories are really friendships.
Good romances are based on humor and a strong emotional bond, not sex alone.
[I mean you care about me, you’re loving, you make me laugh.]
In season eight, Ross and Rachel become a strong parenting team still as friends, symbolizing
that this sacred bond is actually born of friendship, not romantic attraction.
Monica and Chandler’s proves even more explicitly that friendship is the foundation of romantic
love.
His friendship with Monica is what allows Chandler to finally put aside his sarcasm
and open up to real love.
[What if we live together and you'll understand what I'm saying.]
These romances also take place almost entirely in the presence of the other friends.
Ross and Rachel’s romance isn’t theirs alone - it belongs to all six of the friends,
and we see the group’s investment in both the high points - [Ross kissed me.]
[No!]
[Oh my God!] and the low points.
The friends wait outside the door as Chandler proposes to Monica, and they celebrate the
engagement as a group.
Active group participation in romances underlines how at this stage in their lives romance never
completely supersedes friendship.
The friends often attend big events as a group, so that even dates are situated in a larger
friendship context, and coupling off doesn’t stop the characters from hanging out with
each other all the time.
Couplings that pose a threat to the group’s unity are abandoned, and Ross and Rachel make
friendship work after their breakup despite their shared animosity.
The collective friendship between the six characters comes first.
The friends often celebrate major life milestones with each other rather than significant others,
underlining that they are each other’s primary partners.
When Rachel shares the news of her pregnancy with Phoebe and Monica before telling the
baby’s father, it’s as if the three of them are having a baby together.
Ross and Rachel have conceived the baby as friends, and this emphasizes that it’s with
our friends that we take big steps at this age.
After the baby’s birth, Monica “gives” Rachel the name she’d planned to use for
her own daughter, demonstrating that her love for Rachel still comes before her future family
at this point.
[Oh but you love that name!]
[Yeah - but I love you more.]
Fantasizing about future life events, including romantic ones, is also something done with
friends.
Like romantic couples, the characters get closer and achieve stronger bonds by remaining
together through fights, career changes, breakups, and other ups and downs.
[There are three things that you should know about me.
One - my friends are the most important thing in my life.]
Taking part in each other’s weddings [So there's no one to walk me down the aisle and
I would just really love it if you would do it.]
the births of each other’s children signals that the friends will remain in each other’s
lives forever.
When we meet the characters in their mid-twenties, their friends are family.
They spend major holidays like Thanksgiving together, cook for each other, celebrate their
birthdays together, and accompany each other to the doctor.
On the other hand, the friends don’t relate well to their actual family members, whom
they either have little in common with or harbor resentment towards.
[You're kicking me out?]
[You put holes in my baby's ears!]
[Well at least now people would know she's a girl!]
Most can identify with this -- as much as we may love and want to like our families
-- often it’s with our friends that we feel more open, free, and accepted.
The central ethos of Friends is that friendships are just as formative and emotionally important
to our lives as our romances and family.
The show is an argument for the irreplaceable value of friendship in shaping our adult selves.
[You can't move.
You just can't.]
[Rachel's right.
This is where you guys belong.]
As their twenties progress, the show’s characters are occasionally forced to defend their friendships
and question whether they should be more independent from each other.
[I’m 28 years old, I’ve never lived alone, and I’m finally at a place where I’ve
got enough money that I don’t need a roommate anymore.]
Friendship holds supreme importance for these characters at the beginning of the show, but
by its end, as they reach their mid-thirties, friendship is beginning to take second place
to family.
Monica’s and Chandler’s move to the suburbs signals this shift -- the friends will no
longer be able to see each other every day.
As the series comes to a close we feel regret or sadness that this friends-first state of
being can’t last, but we also recognize the enormous love that the characters have
for each other has defined a decade of their lives.
While our society often emphasizes family, romance and individualism, nothing can erase
the impact of friendships.
The theme “I’ll be there for you” is a promise that our true friends, and hopefully
a whole bunch of reruns on Netflix, will never really leave us.