Friends

I realized Friends is one of my comfort TV Series. I grew up watching it off and on, and it was always playing somehow on either StarTV, Channel V or MTV or something of that sort.

This was the 1990s, back when we relied on television schedules to tell us when we could laugh or cry. We didn’t know any better. It was the peak of comedy for a generation raised on canned laughter and low-rise jeans. It is not even the best but something I can just let it run, and not think about it.

It is a sitcom¹ created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004, lasting ten seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer. The show revolves around the six friends in their 20s and early 30s who live in Manhattan, New York City.

The show’s central premise is a group of adults who apparently have no office jobs yet somehow afford prime Manhattan real estate. As a kid in the 90s, I thought adulthood meant spending four hours a day at a coffee shop discussing existential crises caused by laundry mishaps. As an adult now, I realise if you linger at a café for that long, the barista gives you the look. You know, The One with the “buy something, or I unplug the WiFi” look.

Monica was the “mother of the group,” except she was also the competitive sibling, the chef, the perfectionist, and the human equivalent of a label maker. Chandler was the king of sarcasm, which explains an entire generation that grew up coping with life by making jokes at inappropriate times. Joey taught kids that you don’t need brains if you have charm, good hair, and the appetite of a small bear. Phoebe was the spiritual cousin you meet only at weddings who claims she can sense your aura is tired. Ross made paleontology feel somehow more dramatic than it has ever deserved. And of course, Rachel’s got the perfect hair.

Well, sometime in the mid 2000s, I even dated a girl who had The Rachel.

I do realise that half the jokes shaped our personalities, and the other half would trigger a collective internet meltdown. But we loved it. We repeated catchphrases as if they were personality traits. We said “Pivot!” every time someone moved furniture, even if the furniture did not need pivoting. We hummed “Smelly Cat” in the shower for no reason other than deep emotional damage. Many wanted to be Rachel, and we all tried too hard to be as snappy as Chandler. And to this day, I always have a well-done sticker in or near the key-holder (besides the door) that says, “Got the Keys!”

“You have to stop the Q-tip when there is resistance.”

The fashion deserves its own story. The 90s looked like someone threw a thrift store into a blender. You had chunky sweaters, enormous button-down shirts, corduroy everywhere, and enough denim to clothe a small nation. We thought we looked cool. The photographic evidence says otherwise.

The show’s emotional arcs were dramatic only in the way sitcom drama is dramatic. Missed messages. Jealous misunderstandings. A break. Not a Break. A break again. A break, but with different emotional terms and conditions. A break that lasted ten seasons.

“We were on a break!”

Ross and Rachel had the chemistry of two people who should have cut their losses and found therapists. But we rooted for them like idiots because the writers trained us to do so. It was Stockholm Syndrome, but cosy.

Then there is Central Perk. The café that could support six full-time loiterers without ever questioning their life choices. I still don’t know how anyone in the 90s managed to sit on a couch that comfortable without falling asleep. Today, cafés treat you like a fugitive if your laptop battery dips below fifteen percent.

Despite the absurdity, Friends worked. Not because it portrayed real life. It did not. Nobody in the history of humankind has had that many meaningful conversations in one apartment building. It worked because it gave us a fantasy of adulthood. A fantasy where friendship was easy, apartments were big, and problems were solved in twenty-two minutes if you ignored the credits.

Watching it now is like reopening an old time capsule. The jokes hit differently, some better, some worse, some “oh wow, that aged like spoiled milk.” But the nostalgia still slaps. Maybe because the show captured something we lost along the way. Not the glamour of New York, but the simplicity of hanging out without doomscrolling, liking, commenting, or checking who viewed your story. We just lived and laughed, sometimes badly, sometimes sincerely.

As I rewatch it in this era of on-demand everything, I miss the chaos of appointment television. The ritual of waiting a whole week for one episode. We survived patience back then. Today, if a streaming platform buffers for three seconds, we threaten to unsubscribe.

Was Friends perfect? No. But neither were we. We grew up with it, flaws and all. That may be why we still return to it. Not because the jokes are timeless, but because the memories are. And because every episode feels like slipping into an old T-shirt. Faded, stretched, but still strangely comforting.

“Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You’re gonna love it.”

If you watched Friends in the 1990s and early 2000s, you are allowed to be dramatic about it. You earned that right by surviving dial-up modems, tube televisions, and the trauma of Joey wearing all of Chandler’s clothes at once.