Friends

It’s no secret I’m not a fan of Friends. I fall squarely in the camp of believing you’re either a Seinfeld person—appreciative of cynical, slightly subversive comedy that shines a light on those qualities you have but don’t like to admit—or a Friends person. And the latter was, for me, a pleasant, inoffensive show with pleasant, inoffensive comedy. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not my bag.*

One thing Friends had in spades, though, was heart. And while I was never surprised by its popularity, the reaction in the past couple of weeks to Matthew Perry’s death reminded me just how much the show and its characters meant to so many. There are myriad reasons—lots of us conflate actors with characters, and the pervasive nature of modern entertainment often makes us feel as though we actually know someone. Heck, I firmly believe I could and should be best friends with a bunch of celebrities (DM me!).

But what Friends did overtly—and Seinfeld did more subtly given the way its core characters interacted—was celebrate friendship, and the critical emotional role played by the families we choose. Sure, the show hit you over the head with it (if you were in any doubt, its theme song was “I’ll Be There for You”). But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t sweet and worthwhile and all the more resonant because of the world we live in today.

We’re gripped in a loneliness epidemic, especially among men. What’s interesting about Friends and all that preceded and much that followed it—from The Big Chill to St. Elmo’s Fire, Peter’s Friends, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Beautiful Girls, Notting Hill, and countless others—is they appeared before the broad arrival of social media; before most personal interactions became impersonal. In an era we now look back on as the halycon days, popular culture was already valorizing the need for real friendships in real life.

Maybe kids growing up as social-media natives don’t know any better and assume relationships grounded technology are equal to the “old” days. Maybe, for them, they are equal or even better. But for those of us of a certain vintage, I had a pang of empathy and a sharp jolt of familiarity when I read Tom Ford’s latest interview, where one effect of the death of his partner of 35 years, Richard Buckley, became all too apparent.

“Maybe a year ago,” Ford told GQ, “I had to have knee surgery from tennis. So they had to put me under. When I went in, they said, ‘Who do we contact in case of emergency?’ And I literally had no one. So I put my PA.”

Just a week earlier, I’d wondered exactly the same thing. I’m not experiencing what Martin Amis so aptly called the ordinary disaster of death, but the passing of a relationship and the division of one merged life into two. And when you’re with someone for a long time, moving for work, and your days become consumed with kids and there’s little room for much else, your social circle can shrink to vanishing point.

Just to be clear: I was often a bad friend. I jettisoned people I was close to and let other friendships simply wither on the vine. I also happened to move halfway across the world, so the friendships I had (and many I still have, thankfully) struggled beneath the weight of distance. The net result, though, is if I was in Ford’s position today, my emergency contacts would be my brother, his husband, and my mum—I’d have to scribble next to the names, “Only useful if ‘emergency’ means they can get here in two days (provided the flight times work).”

The situation isn’t irreversible, even if making friends as you get older seems way harder and much more likely to be transactional rather than truly emotional. I still have my oldest friends back in Brisbane, who remain thick as thieves after four decades. I saw them in April, will celebrate the New Year with them in a few weeks’ time, and have already vowed publicly and privately to make much more of an effort in the years ahead.

I have a small but loyal group of long-time friends here in the States, who have never failed to be there when I need them. And I’ve in the past year been grateful to get to know an amazing group of guys as I’ve sought to work through who I am, what I want, and how to be a better man and father. I’ll see them in a couple of weeks in Mexico, where we’ll celebrate the camaraderie and support we’ve provided each other in recent months.

And, of course, there’s the family I didn’t get to choose. I’m becoming closer to them as I get older, and I’m fortunate to have family I cherish getting closer to. Yes, they know me better than anyone. Yes, they can deliver hard truths. But that’s a good thing. I won’t stop seeking friendships that bring depth and extra meaning to my life—there’s a reason so many people want their own Chandler, Joey, Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, and Monica. But it’s nice to have family who are, truly, my emergency contacts—at any time, for any reason.

* Quick confession: I did watch the episodes where Ross briefly married Emily because, well, Helen Baxendale.