The cast of Friends is a highly improbable collection of people.
Not quite as improbable as the apartments they somehow manage to keep in Manhattan while spending most of their waking hours drinking coffee, but improbable nevertheless.
And sometimes it made for watchable television.
It also bears very little resemblance to how adulthood is supposed to work.
Or so I thought.
Then I took a moment to consider my own cast.
Nathan worries professionally.
Functionally anxious and relentlessly competent, he approaches most challenges as though they require contingency planning, risk management and a backup contingency plan in case the first one proves inadequate. It’s effective and adorable. He plays the role well.
Reece believes.
In people. In possibilities. In the likelihood that things will somehow work out despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
When people betray him and remain on his friend list, I find myself blocking them with one-sided indignant solidarity.
My blood pressure spikes whenever they comment on a new photo.
No! You don’t get to do that.
Reece, meanwhile, simply laughs at me.
It is a quality I admire and occasionally find terrifying and infuriating in equal measure.
Donevon needs to be loved.
Left unattended for too long, he begins looking around for a mission, a project, a side hustle or an overseas trip.
He’s the one that will punish you, yell at you, cry with you and ask for a hug. He will also pick you up at the airport at 2am.
I wish he knew he is enough. Or at least that he didn’t get bored quite so quickly.
Beth steadies things.
For the longest time while we shared a wall our relationship was no deeper than a half smile of acknowledgment when we passed each other.
Now, moments with Beth are real. Deliberate. Purposeful.
And when they’re over, we both know when it’s time to leave.
Some people improve situations by solving problems. Beth improves situations merely by being present.
Joy cares.
Not in a dramatic or performance-based way, but in the practical, everyday sense of the word. She knows and she remembers. She notices and worries on behalf of other people.
She cares about us before we knew we needed care.
From where she summons the capacity to be so present for everybody is, and always will be, beyond me.
Joy is the source of the feeling you get. The one when you know that everything will be right with the world without quite knowing why.
And then there is Ollie.
Every long-running series eventually introduces a character who changes the rules.
A character who doesn’t care about the ongoing plot, the adult politics, the social dynamics or any of the things everybody else spends so much time worrying about.
Ollie is seven.
He communicates selectively, lives almost entirely in the present, and possesses the superhuman ability to remind the rest of us what actually matters.
Some days he will choose your hand to hold.
When Ollie chooses your hand, there is no hidden agenda. No obligation.
Just: “You. Today, I choose you”
You quickly discover there are no meetings, emails, performance reviews or strategic plans that can compete with being chosen by this seven-year-old.
The adults all believe we are looking after Ollie.
In reality the arrangement is a two way street.
Looking at our arrangement from the outside, it makes very little sense.
Relationships ended. New relationships began and with them, new people arrived.
People changed roles, but somehow nobody left.
Nobody left.
In the real world, breakups require some sort of administrative restructuring to ensure one party never has to share oxygen with the other ever again.
In our little sit-com, there is an inappropriately short pause to reflect on how unfortunate the breakup is, then our cast list grows and somebody checks to make sure Joy is still bringing her potato salad.
My guess is that in your friend group you, too will know who to call when you need advice.
Who to call when you need encouragement.
Who to call when you need somebody to tell you that your plan is stupid.
And who to call when what you actually need is somebody to help make the plan considerably worse.
Certain names from a wider orbit will appear on your phone and produce immediate and predictable emotional responses.
If you’re lucky, your cast will be every bit as improbable as mine.
The lawyer getting engaged again.
The barkeeper looking to share a drink.
The Italian with his insightful and outrageous series of questions.
But the main cast are my people.
Roles may have shifted and spinoffs spawned, but somehow we are all still here.
They have accepted me into their lives and invited me to take my shoes off.
My life would be poorer if any of them moved to Surry Hills.
Anyway.
I’ll be there for you
Certain characters have been edited for dramatic purposes.