The Cruel Lie of "Friends"

[ellie_andrews]

The average US adult moves 11.7 times and changes jobs around 12 times in their lifetimes.

Surveys find that millennials in particular are lonelier than they’ve ever been.

Adult friendships don't happen the way they do on TV, and that's perfectly normal. https://t.co/TFImuKUucs
- Vox (@voxdotcom) May 28, 2021
** we've long understood that tv & movies

Comments

[melancolour]

Lmao this is BS. You need to maintain friendships deliberately, but it's not some impossible task? You're closer to the ones who you live in the same city with, sure, but that's it.

"Real friendships are rife with conflict, separations, jealousies, and reconciliations. They are relationships like any other, stretching through their growing pains and sometimes snapping from the stress of ongoing tension. But none of that ever seems to make it to a television screen."

1. That's what happened on friends and 2. Is not true at all for my friendships. Get better friends, writer!

[cbluechicken]

I mean, it's true in a sense. You're never going to see eye to eye with people you're friends with. It's about knowing if it's worth getting through, how you communicate what's going on, respecting boundaries etc etc. All the things I feel like people only put on romantic relationships which is partly the issue. I remember one time a girl I knew in college was like "friends are just placeholders for boyfriends" and now her whole life revolves just around him yikes.

[war_machine_rox]

"friends are just placeholders for boyfriends"

Oh that just made me so sad for her. That sounds terribly lonely :(

[cbluechicken]

tbh, she was an asshole who made lots of racist comment so I ended my friendship w her my junior year. ha suffer

[war_machine_rox]

Oh well never mind then lmao she can stay miserable

[madamezuzu]

people will have different experiences than you. just because you have great friends doesn’t mean that’s universal.

[simontheduck]

Just try harder, ya friendless losers!!1!!!1 (jk but that's honestly how it sounds haha)

[sarahbear1]

of course tv friendships are unrealistic. it's tv.

[icetypejim]

Honestly tired of this genre of writing that either basically tries to portray millennial adulthood is inescapably and uniquely miserable in every way or is one writer projecting their own dreary experiences onto an entire generation.

Also not to put too fine a point on it, but a lot of this discourse around millennials starts from a very white, middle class and/or middle-class-aspirant position that is never reflected on and is completely unrelatable to me and most people I grew up with lol.

[slinkydinks]

I mean, yes, but also: who wants to watch a sitcom where people are living in miserable isolation without adult friends or just hanging out with their significant other?