2023-10-29 16:56:35
Back when television was still big, because the internet was still tiny and you couldn’t stave off boredom with Instagram, Twitter, Tinder or Netflix, we watched the latest “Friends” episode once a week: half an hour For a long time, six friends who did nothing other than hang out with each other and who were pretty much like us, only a lot funnier because they didn’t have to think up their own sayings.
Lots of people between 20 and 30, in the no man’s land of life, where you have already survived the horrors of childhood and youth, but still have no real idea of what the future will look like, and every day you have a present full of strange jobs and even stranger dates.
But they had each other: six friends who told each other everything, absolutely everything, saw each other in the most embarrassing situations, mocked each other to death or went to bed with each other and still liked each other. It was a friendship better than any family. But like many things that make you truly happy, it had to end.
After ten seasons and 236 episodes, “Friends” was canceled in May 2004, at a time when the series was more successful than ever – and when it became necessary to end. After all, in order not to become dislikeable, even the most likeable procrastinators have to move out at some point, start their own lives, get married, make babies, start families in which you long for the feather-light days of friendship.
also read
Now the first of these six friends has died, Matthew Perry. He had played Chandler Bing, the most adult among them, simply because, unlike them, he had a real job from the start, as a data analyst. He was only 54 years old, never started a family, never had children, lived single in a large house in Los Angeles and drowned in the whirlpool in which he himself was in his last Instagram post a week ago showed, with the text: “Warm swirling water is good for you.”
What set Chandler Bing apart was his normality – a kind of normality that suited those millennials who recognized themselves in “Friends.” Monica was a compulsive character, Rachel was an emotional overdose, Phoebe was hopelessly messed up, Ross was an idiot full of airs and graces, Joey was a good-looking simpleton, all spacious egos who had little self-doubt. But Chandler was insecure, so much so that he constantly held himself back. “What if I never find anyone?” he asked himself, “or even worse, what if I have already found her and dump her?” That’s why he made his sarcastic remarks: because he wanted to keep his feelings at bay, and the people who could trigger feelings in him. Pure self-protection.
But behind the camouflage of the joker, one could sense a new kind of man: sensitive, decent, always ready to celebrate the successes and careers of women instead of talking down, never even a hint of what is now called “toxic”. And he bore the fate of millennials with dignity: stuck in a job that paid the rent but didn’t have the slightest meaning. He knew that nothing he did mattered and that his real life was waiting for him every night at Central Perk.
Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing (l.) and his “Friends”
Quelle: NBCUniversal/Getty Images
But his actual heroic deeds took place in secret: the fight for survival against decades-long drug addiction, alcoholism, and health problems. He started drinking beer when he was 14 and ended up doing everything but heroin. He had become addicted to the medication he had been prescribed after a nasty back injury, an early example of America’s painkiller epidemic and proof that it is not limited to losers. By his own account, he spent $9 million and went through more than 60 rehabs to get clean, and over the years his addiction led to a ruptured colon, the loss of his front teeth and two weeks in a coma.
When the cast of “Friends” reunited for a Netflix special in 2021, everyone was talking about him. How nervous and distracted he seemed, how unclear his speech, how old he looked! There was also the tension in the others, which you could feel every time he spoke.
Completely honest
His memoirs were published in 2022. He had written it himself, without the help of a ghostwriter, on his phone’s note-taking app, and he told everything in it: how he woke up from a coma, what it was like having to wear an ostomy bag after his intestinal rupture, how he remembered the old ” “Friends” episodes because he realized how bad he was feeling and that after three seasons he couldn’t remember even filming them.
Once, his book says, Jennifer Aniston told him that the others knew he had started drinking again because “we can smell it,” and that the plural “we” hit him “like a sledgehammer “. His answer to the question of why he wrote all of this so extensively and painfully was: He wanted to help others, and you can only do that if you are completely honest.
It is tragic that someone who helped millions upon millions of people navigate their own adulthood by imitating his humor, sensitivity, and stoicism never got to enjoy his own adulthood, which was just beginning 2020 could begin after he finally managed to get rid of his demons. He deserved to grow old surrounded by friends.
Here you will find content from third parties
In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is necessary, as the providers of the embedded content require this consent as third party providers [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (revocable at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can revoke your consent at any time using the switch and privacy at the bottom of the page.
#Matthew #Perry #friend #left