Entertainment
What Happens When You Live With A 'Friends' Fan
If you're living with a Friends fan, then lucky you! You're living with the best kind of person there is! If you're not a Friends fan yourself (shame on you), you'll probably be able to begrudgingly relate to having to deal with some things that are very specific to the personality of a Friends lover. And you'll definitely lay awake at night hearing the Friends theme song even if there's total silence. (But that's totally normal, right? Don't we all?) If the person you're cohabiting with is watching too much Friends , it's possible they've started to mix reality with Central Perk. Maybe you're getting sucked into their weird alternate reality in which they genuinely start to believe they are the seventh friend. However it manifests, the obsession of a Friends fan can be truly glorious, and, I'll (reluctantly) admit, terrifying to a non-Friends fan.
Things have probably escalated for you and your roommate/live-in partner/spouse/family member since Netflix added Friends to their stable. And by "escalated" I mean "your life now revolves around Friends and your TV is a shrine to the show." Short of being tied down and brainwashed with images, this is the closest you're going to get to audio-visual indoctrination (unless you're a spy and some day you get captures by Russians or something, I don't know your life). Here are 6 things you're just going to have to deal with if you live with a Friends fan.
1. Friends on in the background—constantly
Since Netflix released every season of Friends on January 1st, there's every possibility that nothing else has played on your TV/computer since. Although, chances are your Friends-loving cohabitor has all the DVDs anyway, so the constant hum of Friends in the background at all times probably isn't entirely new to you.
2. Every real-life situation gets compared to a similar scenario on Friends
Every single thing you do will be like "that time Chandler hated dogs" or "that time Phoebe didn't believe in evolution" or like "when Joey had a twin" or "when Monica couldn't leave her shoes out overnight" or "when Rachel walked around naked." Living with a Friends fanatic means coming to terms with the fact that you are now just a sub-par reflection of something that happened on a Friends episode once.
3. Probably some kind of framed art involving Friends
Just be grateful it's not Gladys.
4. Being referred to as "such a [insert character's name here]" when you are being such a [insert character's name here]
Just as your life with a Friends aficionado is always going to be a take on a scenario from Friends, so too is your personality. Are you cleaning ever, at any time, even for a minute? You're SUCH a Monica! Just made a joke? OMG, you = Chandler! Ate a slice of pizza? You're so Joey! Read your horoscope in the paper? Hello, Phoebe! Said the word "dinosaur" one time? You're a Ross! Wore clothes? RACHEL TO THE MAX!
5. Being forced to listen to them singing the second verse of "I'll Be There For You"
It's the personal mission of every Friends fan to prove their superiority to everyone else by knowing all the words to the lesser known second verse of the Friends theme song. IT'S WHAT SETS US APART FROM YOU NORMALS.
6. Knowing more than you'd care to know about Friends
Before long, you'll start knowing all the words to the second verse of "I'll Be There For You" too. In fact, the longer you live with someone who loves Friends, the more unwanted Friends knowledge you'll start to soak up. Soon, someone will be reading this list and thinking about you.
