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. That’s it, I thought, when I’m in my 20s (an age that seemed very far away at the time) I’ll be living with my best friend in a nice apartment, my best friends will live across the hall and we will spend time together. our days at the coffee shop while I easily climbed the career ladder (I imagined myself as Rachel, of course). Friends told us that life would be like that, but now, at 27 years old, watching the Friends reunion special, I’ve 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 obviously don’t have to deal with housing problems in London, which makes some friendships feel like long-distance relationships. We’re not talking about the SIZE of Monica and Rachel’s apartment. Lovely kitchen! Large waiting room! Huge windows and reading nook! What a dream. Even though it was eventually explained that the apartment used to belong to Monica’s grandmother and that it was rent controlled, I couldn’t help but feel jealous as I sat in my Brixton shoebox.

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 in any case impossible over the past year, are few and far between and I’m lucky if I get to see even one of my friends IRL every week, let alone every day. Even though I spent a year living with one of my best friends (honestly, it was awesome, I highly recommend it), our different schedules meant half the time we were ships passing in the night. Although when my partner and I decided to move in together, I did utter Monica’s line of “Now I have to live with a boy!” Even though Friends sold us lies about what our 20s would be like, and I lamented just as much. Being in your 20s isn’t all doom and gloom. This is a decade about aligning dreams, finding love, discovering places