The Lie We’ve Been Told About Having Friends
BFFF: I need to tell you something... Me: What’s up?
BFFF: You may not be able to forgive me for it...
Me: What is it? Tell me BFFF: I slept with Daniel
Me: Daniel who? BFFF: Daniel your husband
Me: Oh... BFFF: I’m sorry. You’re still my Best
Friend. I just hope I’m yours too…
(1 hour later)
Me: You’re right. We are best friends for life.
BFFF: Does that mean you forgive me? Me: That’s what BFF means, right? That we
can get through anything. I’m sorry I made you doubt it.
BFFF: It’s okay, love you xo Me: Love you more xo
Oh, sweet rom-coms. Friends, Sex and the City, How I Met your Mother. Don’t even get me
started on shows like Gossip Girl, although that show may be geared towards a younger
audience. And hey, I ain’t mocking them. They’re an absolute joy to watch. Although
I never actually watched Friends, only a couple episodes here and there. Was that show any
good? What’d I miss?
But I’ve watched enough TV in my life to recognize that the friendships we often see,
specifically friend groups, particularly adult, female friend groups, are more often than
not portrayed very differently from what most people would call ‘real life’.
Now look, they’re not exactly meant to be representations of reality or offer us standards
and expectations to live by. Though something may be rooted in reality, it doesn’t mean
it’s necessarily realistic. It’s serving another purpose: entertainment. Perhaps escapism.
If every movie and show were to accurately reflect and fully embody my life and my feelings,
there wouldn’t be much of an incentive to watch that unfold on TV, when I could just
continue living it.
That does not mean, however, that TV-shows and movies, referred to as “TV” from here
on out, don’t cultivate unrealistic expectations about what friendship and romance is supposed
to look like - the research is pretty clear on this. Take this article right here for
example, saying that TV does play a role in shaping our perception of how things are supposed
to be. We idealize these scripted relationships, and are left feeling disappointed when they
don’t happen in our lives.
Now, this is not me being a special snowflake saying that the film industry is to blame
for my expectations and that they should take my feelings into consideration. It just happens
to be the case that mid-binging, I catch myself rolling my eyes quite frequently, thinking
“yeah right, like that would actually ever happen in real life”, and it’s fun to
talk about, so let’s do that. And also, none of this applies to every single episode
of every single TV show ever made.
3 Ways in which TV-friendships don’t make sense
I. Everything is forgiven and forgotten - all the time
On TV, friendships always recover, no matter the hardship. Slept with my husband? We’ll
work it out. Ruined any chance I had at getting my dream job by trash talking me to the manager?
Let’s make amends over brunch. We’ll see characters do awful things to each other,
yet, by the end of the episode, or perhaps a few episodes, they’ve put it behind them
and moved on.
And it’s not just about the most extreme. Sometimes it’s things like continuous passive
aggression or jealousy. Still, what’s often being portrayed as forgiven and forgotten
on TV, are things that, in real life, would take much longer to process, and oftentimes,
would even split up the friendship.
Now, obviously, it’s a show, so they can’t just stop talking to each other all-together
or else there wouldn’t be a show, or at least, that would make the entire story take
a different route.
Something that is quite sad, although more realistic, is what sometimes goes on behind
the scenes. If you’re a fan at all of Sex and the City, you may know that Kim Cattrall,
who plays Samantha Jones, allegedly didn’t get along with the girls at all in real life,
specifically with Sarah Jessica Parker. I’m not going to get into the details of the allegations;
feel free to look it up if you’re interested.
Similarly was the case with the actresses in Desperate Housewives, who also played a
group of best friends, while behind the scenes, there was allegedly a feud between Teri Hatcher,
who played Susan Mayer, and the rest of the women.
And that does reflect what often happens in real life, specifically with friend groups,
where there’s some sort of a hierarchy. Where, for example, in a group of five, two
people may be closer to each other than the rest of the group, and one person may feel
like they’re a bit of an outsider in the group. On TV, however, everyone in the group
seem to often be portrayed as equals.
The premise here is this, in real life, we have boundaries, or we ought to have boundaries.
Just because someone has the label “best friend” or “partner”, it doesn’t mean
that they can get away with anything and everything. Labels are not an escape card for shitty behaviour,
unless you’re watching a rom-com.
II. Being constantly available
Speaking of boundaries, what TV often portrays is this idea that no matter what you’re
in the middle of and no matter how you feel, you’re supposed to always show up when your
friend asks you to, and we’re not just talking about emergencies. It could be something like
them wanting to vent about an unsuccessful date or feeling stressed about work.
Yes, we should be there for our friends, within reason, meaning that in real life, most of
us can’t simply drop everything and run over to our friends house to chat over a glass
of wine. Seeing each other typically takes planning, and even then it’s not always
smooth sailing. As life happens, plans get moved around and sometimes cancelled. Yet,
what we see on TV are full-blown adults, with jobs, careers, families and homes of their
own, having all the spare time in the world to just hang out.
I do believe however that things typically look a bit different when you’re in your
teens. When I was 14, 17, even 21 and I had roommates, creating time for friends didn’t
require much work or planning. Partly because of the lack of “real” responsibilities
and obligations, but also because of logistics. See, unless you live with your friends, go
to the same school or work with them, getting together isn’t exactly as simple as just
making a call and asking to meet up for brunch four times a week.
Can we just touch on the fact that, in teen-tv-shows… It's like the characters don’t even go to
school and we barely see them study, yet they all graduate with good grades and get into
IVY leagues? Or the fact that they even PASS their classes. It was always a mystery to
me.
I think the simple answer to that would be that we don’t see the long classes and studying
because that would be boring, just like how we rarely get much insight into the mundane,
in-between moments in life, because, well TV is like a friendship highlight reel, of
multiple protagonists. It’s the most interesting parts of their week crammed into a 40 minute
episode. Studying, doing laundry and laying on your bed scrolling on your phone for hours
doesn’t exactly make the cut.
Back to what I was saying. I do believe that what’s often being portrayed is codependency,
where they need each other for emotional stability. They’re hyper involved in each others lives,
oftentimes sacrificing themselves and their own well-being to “be there”. And sure,
there is a time and place for that in friendships - I’ve had friends drop everything for me
when I’ve needed them and I’ve done the same for them.
But for someone who’s younger, in particular, and who watches these shows, they may get
the idea that that’s what friendship is supposed to be like, all the time. That you’re
supposed to continuously put your friends' needs before your own and that you’re supposed
to risk it all to be there for them no matter what. In real life though, especially when
you’re an adult, life doesn’t typically revolve around our friend group. We have jobs,
careers, family, a home, a dog, and even the need to rest and spend time with ourselves,
and so in my opinion, prioritising your friends no matter what and expecting them to do the
same and being disappointed when they can’t, sounds more like codependency than just being
a good friend.
III. Telling your friends “everything”
Sharing intimate and private information with friends, and not only information about their
own life, but of the lives of others, such as partners, isn’t all that uncommon on
TV. Personally, I’m not a fan of the whole “we tell each other everything” philosophy
that these TV friend groups display. Not if that “everything” involves other people
who would not be ok with their information being shared.
Now, of course, I’m not talking about information that must be shared for things like safety
reasons. If someone is in, let’s say, an abusive situation, that information should
absolutely not be kept quiet about. I’m talking about things like, your boyfriend
feeling insecure about his body or having family issues. But also details about intimate
moments that are expected to remain between those involved only.
Not sharing every aspect of your life and what’s going on in your relationships isn’t
a sign that you’re not comfortable with your friends or that you’re not close enough
with them, it may simply be a sign that you respect the privacy of other people, as one
should.
Like my friend Louise, for example. Her and her boyfriend, Andrew, I’ll leave the links
for their instagrams in the description box, they’re having issues in their relationship
right now. Apparently, Andrew doesn’t like Louise's mom and it’s become a bit of a
mess. And she told me that yesterday when we were on the phone. And it’s like, why
are you telling me that, Louise? Would Andrew be OK with you sharing this information with
me? I just think it’s disrespectful.