Previously on Real Live Friends…

RLF has spent two and a half years watching Friends™ and comparing it to his own life.

In that time:

RLF, Rachel, Chandler and Monica have all changed jobs.
The Friends™ have had a host of hilarious relationships, RLF has got engaged.
The Friends™ are still living in the same apartments, RLF is “temporarily” living at their parents.

Wedding Count:
Friends™ - 1 (aborted)
Real Live Friends – 2

Divorce Count:
Friends™ - 1
Real Live Friends – 1

Birth Count:
Friends™ - 1
Real Live Friends - 1

Death Count:
Friends™ - 2
Real Live Friends – 2 (and 1 dog)

Number of inter- friend –group relationships:
Friends™ - 1 (Rachel and Ross)
Real Live Friends – 1 (Chandler Number 2 and Joey Number 1)

Infidelity Count:
Friends™ - 4 (including Joey’s dad, and excluding Joey)
Real Live Friends – 1 near miss

Number of Breaks:
Friends™ - 1 (Rachel and Ross)
Real Live Friends - 1 (Rachel Number 1 and Ross Number 2)

Number of Tattoos:
Friends™ - 1
Real Live Friends – 1

Number of Pets:
Friends™ - 1 (Monkey)
Real Live Friends – Cats and Dogs (numerous)

Number of Curtain Haircuts:
Friends™ - 0 now
Real Live Friends – 1 (Still going strong…)

Time spent in New York:
Friends™ - 2.5 years
Real Live Friends – one week

Number of Women Ross Has Slept with:
3 (and one near miss with Chandlers mum)

Number of Times RLF has Watched Old Yeller:
0

A series of Friends™ related coincidences have occurred. The most recent of which (finding out he shares his anniversary with Rachel and Ross) has caused RLF to fear for his sanity… read on to see if his relationship goes the same way as Rachel and Ross…

 “The One With the ‘Previously On…’”

It seems we’re still good here, thank you very much. Unlike Rachel and Ross, we’ve just had a lovely anniversary in Paris. However, I did just find out a friends brother’s wife left him for a lesbian, so the less said about my sanity the better.

Two weeks have passed since my last entry. Blog entry, I mean. (things are going a little better for me than Rachel and Ross). For the Friends™ it’s only the morning after Ross’s “last entry” with the Xerox™ girl. Woops… like Ross I’ve made a bit of an error here, though waiting two weeks rather than watching straight on isn’t quite as bad as his mistake.

I watched this episode without my fiancé, so was spared her pointing out that the Xerox girl is 100% my type. I can now jump in my time machine and get with her without suspicion, thus saving both Rachel and Ross and technically not cheating! (Because we weren’t going out in the 90s). At least, I could if this were Goodnight Sweetheart™. Alas, Friends™ has no time travel (as yet…).

At least we now know: They were definitely NOT on a break.

But they are now, indefinitely… goodbye Rachel and Ross.

I was wondering how they’d manage to navigate this. A gritty break-up between two beloved characters isn’t exactly comedy gold. So before the drama we get a comic melange of Ross trying to work out what to do, and then attempting to cut off the “trail” to save his relationship. The boys are as bad as each other here, Chandler and, a worryingly experienced, Joey persuading Ross to keep the secret.

Maybe the real reason Joey thinks he needs a new walk is to make him less recognisable to all the women he’s treated like crap?

With social media now you’d either need to be a complete word wizard or a high-grade hacker to cut off this “trail”. There’s something about seeing Ross physically putting in the effort, rather than seeing a sad little man hacking his girlfriends Facebook™ and blocking people, that leaves you wanting him to succeed. Until Gunther ruins everything! Stupid Gunther.

“Finally she will be mine!”

Cleverly, the writers manage to make the dramatic confrontation between Rachel and Ross both intensely moving and highly amusing by showing it from the other characters perspective. Their selfish squabbling and bickering undercuts the tragedy. Though to be fair to Jennifer Aniston, she is hilarious when Rachel is being sarcastic!

Ross is trying desperately to save things, eventually resorting to gas-lighting:

 “You’re the one that ran!”

Errr no…. she wasn’t Ross. We were all there; you literally slammed the door and ran after she suggested a break. Good on Rachel for remaining strong and ending it.

It’s easy to say from the outside, but someone cheating a year into a relationship with problems already is definitely the end. It’s too long after the grace period of confusion at the start and way before the late marital period where you’ve got so much history things might be salvageable. (Although you wouldn’t mistakenly think you were on a break if you were married, unless it’s very late in the marriage and one of you has Alzheimer’s).

Like Rachel and Ross we’re left broken hearted.

Until Joey walks out.

Real Live Sitcom Moment:

Paris was tip-top, but the vegetarian struggle is very much real over there. The concierge at our hotel basically laughed in our face when we asked about vegetarianism, before launching into a bizarre “comic” rant about how the British Royal Family killed Princess Diana.

It was very difficult to tell what was supposed to be humour and how much was genuine craziness. Like Phoebe’s date last time, we were in desperate need of a translator...

We went to the Moulin Rouge, and saw loads of boobs. We went to the Louvre, and saw loads of boobs. All in all it was a very boob-y holiday. But apart from that was excellent.

Food wise my fiancés one saviour was the cheese-board. We have a terrible habit of leaving it too late to find somewhere for dinner, usually resulting in very h-angry walks. This time was no different after we took an Uber™ half way across the city only for the top-rated wine bar to be unexpectedly fully booked. On Easter Sunday. What are the chances?!

We went to our default of desperately wandering the streets looking for somewhere nice and eventually found a comparable looking wine bar. Finally our needs for wine and cheese would be met!

We ordered the biggest sample rack on the menu and what turned out to be the world’s most disappointing cheese-board. But at least we still had the wine coming! We waited, and then, with a flourish, our waiter brought over our drinks. Six glasses of the finest Port that Paris had to offer!

Needless to say, my fiancé was not best pleased. Particularly when I attempted to drink most of it myself to get our moneys worth before we left.

Seriously. .. What IS it with it always being Ross and Rachel, and not Rachel and Ross?!

Even in the spoiler-ific title of this episode (a side effect of the episodes not being named till after the fact…) it is the wrong way round! For all the great work on female characters, and sympathetically showing both sides of Rachel and Ross’s break-up (even if Ross is definitely the one at fault…) we still say Ross first. I just don’t get it.

“The One Where I Try and Make #RachelAndRoss Happen”

It’s RACHEL and ROSS’s anniversary, and I can’t believe I didn’t notice this last year… it’s also my anniversary!

I checked and it is also almost exactly a year since I watched the one with the prom video, where they first get together. How did I not clock this last year?! OK, this IS spooky. I’m even starting to feel like Rachel does at work, playing catch-up due to holidays, things going wrong, and getting annoyed by problems left by ex-colleagues. WHAT IS GOING ON.

Even Ross accidentally starting a fire in her office continues the trend of fire related jokes happening in my real life but in a more serious way. Just a few months back our neighbours at work completely burnt down. Presumably also because of some romantic gesture gone wrong.

Ross’s attempts to fit their relationship around work are all becoming too much for Rachel. How dare she try and have a career AND a relationship?

But it’s hard not to feel sorry for them both. She needs to work hard to move forward in her job, he feels alone and neglected in their relationship. It’s an age-old story, though cunningly gender-swapped.

To be fair to Ross if I had to work late on our anniversary I’d get a lot more hassle than he gives Rachel. But, as fans of the show have argued for years, it is Ross who ultimately makes the big three mistakes here. First walking out after Rachel mentions a break, secondly never trusting that Rachel and Mark are just friends, and finally assuming the worst when he finds out they’re together. (Although given the circumstances you’d think it would be obvious to Rachel that having Mark round was not a good idea).

Ross’s possessiveness and jealousy has led them here, and we’re crushed as he, unaware that there’s still hope, moves past the point of no return with the Xerox girl (cleverly mentioned previously). Schwimmer beautifully plays the despondency of Ross believing things are over, as well as his reluctance to let it all go before the final “fuck it” moment after Chloe kisses him.

The real tragedy is this whole situation would have played very differently with mobile phones…
 
With the bulk of 'The One Where RACHEL and ROSS Take a Break' being taken up by their story-line, there’s little for the other characters to do. We do, at least, get an amusing scene of Monica and Phoebe going on a double date with a foreign diplomat and his translator. I never realised how many good double date scenes there are in the show. I need to try and arrange more in my life!

If, not quite a double date, we went out for a family dinner recently that was in dire need of a translator. The poor waitress found her knowledge of a new wine menu did not meet my dad’s satisfaction. This was not helped by his refusal to wear glasses meaning he could hardly read it, and her only saying the name of the wine rather than anything about it.

He also refused to accept any South African wines due to their problems with racism, preferring instead to have some from his home country: Australia. As far as I’m aware they’ve never had any problems with racism…

Eventually it all got a bit much for the young, inexperienced waitress and she offered to take my dad down to the wine cellar to pick out his own.

Real Live Sitcom Moment:

I’ve just got back from a cycling holiday for my David the Science Guys stag weekend. Our plan was to ask his brother if he too was circumcised, to put the whole issue to bed. But this led to even more confusion than answers. After we broached the topic he texted his mother in a panic only to receive the response that, as far as she was aware, neither of them are circumcised.

I’m beginning to suspect Ross Number 2 is not quite the authority on circumcision he claims to be…

I decided to stay an extra day to take in Brussels (just to make catching up at work EVEN harder). Unfortunately, poor research on my part meant I picked the only day of the week when all the museums were closed.

Wandering round a closed city with a hangover was not the ideal way to end the weekend.

With dad back now the pressure is really on to find a new house. We HAVE to get out of my parents house soon. Mostly because the cats are using a litter tray again and it’s kicking up a right stink.

Our desperation is such that we’ve just had a full day house-hunting.

At one house there was a large degree of confusion when a window cleaner instructed us to let ourselves in before the estate agent even arrived. It was only after he started singing the praises of the size of the garage we realised it was HIS house and he was working on next doors that day by coincidence.

The day built to such a maelstrom of stress that, by the time we got to the last house, I forgot to put my handbrake on and my car reversed into it! Fortunately there was no lasting damage, but we still made a hasty exit when we realised the house was one we’d already viewed six months ago. Sooo happy to be doing this again...

 “The One Where I’m Stuck in Neutral Gear”

If it seems like my life is standing still, at least the Friends™ are in a similar position.

Chandler is failing to make it work with Joeys ex (due to her having part of her body missing, and him having an extra bit…)

Phoebe is being screwed over by an old friend for a second time, and Rachel and Ross are continuing the slow decline of their relationship.

I already feel stupid for defending Ross. He descends into full on controlling behaviour this week: refusing to let go of Rachel’s hand as she attempts to say goodbye to Mark.

The cracks are starting to show and she snaps at him for needlessly coming to a fashion lecture and distracting her from work. She’s not unlike Cannibal Boss when I need something from her. Though at least she doesn't call Ross a "Toilet".

Toilet… smells… toilet…. Smells… toilet… SMELLY CAT!

Smelly cat’s back again, the cat that keeps on giving! It’s now almost a year since the Smelly Cat Video. These are fast becoming a fixture in the calendar to rival Easter™!

This time it’s in the shape of Phoebe’s old singing partner (Elizabeth Daily, perhaps best known as Tommy Pickles in another 90s classic: Rugrats™) stealing the song for a catchy jingle.

(I could really do with some of this right now…)

I find it interesting re-watching, how some things regarded as classic moments run and run and run and some only burst into existence then disappear. Things that loom just as large in my memory as smelly cat, e.g. Chandlers “Nubbin” appear once and are never mentioned again (and in this case literally removed.)

It’s a mark of how much things have changed in the last twenty years, in TV and outside the show, that a joke where Monica thinks Joey threw Chandlers new girlfriends dog on a fire completely unfases me, as the studio audience gasps in horror. Those poor little lambs, just you wait till they see Always Sunny in Philadelphia™ (now the longest running live-action comedy of all time!).

But these were tamer times, and it wasn’t the dog it was ONLY her prosthetic leg! Phew…

A much less amusing version of this event happened to a Real Live Friend of mine once when their arm was stolen from a pub. Still, I don’t know what they were complaining about! You can get prosthetic emojis now and everything.

What a time to be alive…

Real Live Sitcom Moment:

A special mention this week to two Real Live Friends who have collectively become Ross Number 3 by being the first of my friends to have a child! (At least until one of them becomes a lesbian).

This caused a little consternation after I posted in our little Facebook™ thread:

“Congrats!!

Did you poo yourself?

(Only kidding…)”

Rachel Number One furiously (and correctly) pointed out this isn’t really an acceptable joke to make to someone who’s just given birth. Even, perhaps ESPECIALLY, if you used to have intimate relationships with them.

I hurriedly deleted the comment before they could see and breathed a sigh of relief.

Until I logged on the next day to see it now read:

“Congrats!!

(Only kidding…)”

Thanks a lot Rachel Number One...