Pelgris

Why do we embrace the mythology of lifelong friends? Friendship so close that you talk daily. That you meet up for breakfast, go out for drinks, and are just generally each others family.

Are our actual families broken? That it creates this yearning to belong. Is it this which draws us into cults…or fantasy sports leagues? Are we just so lonely that the response has been by our storytellers to create this friendship mythology?

Shows like Friends, New Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Happy Endings, and even It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia. All ensemble casts. All depicting a level of close friendship which generally doesn’t exist.

But we clearly want it to. So why doesn’t it? If we clearly want it, what stops it from occurring.

I mean, first off… None of the people in those shows have kids. Because once that happens your friends disappear for at least a few years. And, ever after, friendship becomes a secondary thing to that family unit.

In other words, life gets in the way. And not all friendships are forever. Some are right now friendship or circumstance friends.

Maybe we’re all just so lonely that we create these friend mythologies to compensate for the lack of connection and permanence we feel in our lives.

Or maybe life just drives a wedge.
I’ve had some friends say they wish we all lived together. I wish we’d buy a street of houses and move in together. These are the people I want in my life. Always. But, I know that’s not how it’s going to be.

So I’ll watch another long running cast of fictional friends. And pretend that’s something that happens. Somewhere. Just not to me.