Early & Alone #52: The One Where Joey Dies Alone in the Sandwich Shop
This weekend was long and rainy and cold. It was lonely. The only time I left my apartment was to attend a funeral mass for my sister-in-law’s grandmother. And though the rain added to my general sense of gloom, I was grateful for it, because I had a lot of work to do and no invitations and it’s always harder to be home alone and sad when the sun is shining like a stinging slap.
Saturday night, bored and restless and unable to focus on work, I turned on the Friends Reunion because both my brother and sister recommended it and it just seemed like something I should see, a cultural artifact. I loved Friends as a kid, until it got silly and they turned Ross into a simpering idiot and I went to college and didn’t watch TV for 4 years. And now, when I’ve seen an episode here or there, I can’t turn off the part of my brain that points out all the things that are wrong--the fatphobia, the whiteness, the ease with which these characters move through the world. I know, it’s annoying, I get it, I’m annoyed with me, too.
But I didn’t hate the Reunion. The affection the actors have for one another seems genuine--that’s the part I found myself enjoying, more than the scenes from the show or the special guests or the clips of people saying how much the show means to them. These actors have known one another for nearly 30 years now. They met when they were in their 20s, all pretty much unknown actors just trying to figure shit out. I made many of my strongest friendships around that age as well, coworkers or grad school friends, all of us struggling to pinpoint who it was we wanted to be.
The idea of Friends, and of all its knock-offs from How I Met Your Mother to New Girl, hinges on the fallacy that we all have a solid core group of friends whom we see nearly every day. We go to the same bar/coffee shop and if we leave the state, we’re leaving it together. There are periphery characters from time to time, flings and temporary significant others, maybe a family member or a coworker makes the occasional cameo, but for the most part, that one friend group is our whole world.
I don’t know anyone for whom this scenario is even remotely true. It might be true for a year or two, say during grad school or a new job or living abroad, but for the most part, your friends are people you meet in all kinds of circumstances, and the lines blur more as you get older and your friends from high school meet your college friends who meet your coworkers who meet your neighbors who meet your friends from playgroup. By the time you get to your 30s, sometimes you have friends you can’t even remember meeting for the first time.
And the great thing about those kinds of friends are that they are all different, have different strengths and weaknesses and relate to you in all kinds of ways. You learn who is good in a crisis, who will always be up for drinks, who can commiserate about dating and who loves to go to the movies. Heartbreakingly, you will learn who you can trust and who you can’t.
I wish I had a core group of friends I saw all the time. I wish I was like a sitcom character who could just walk into a particular bar and know one of my best friends would be there, waiting for me to spill about my bad day or my new crush. But life isn’t like that, especially when you’re close to 40.
One of the creators of Friends, Marta Kauffman, says during the Reunion that the show is about “that time in your life when your friends are your family.” She says this a couple of times, but it hit me when she said it in reference to the show’s ending. Because for her, “that time in your life when your friends are your family,” is finite. It’s illustrated by the show--it ended when Monica and Chandler had babies and bought a house in the suburbs (sidenote: HOW?). They have their own family now, and though they will always love their friends, that time is over.
When the actors are asked where they think their characters are now, they all give a boring and pat synopsis--Monica and Chandler are busy being parents, Rachel and Ross get married and have kids, Phoebe and Mike are married with kids. And then there’s Joey. Poor, sad, dumb Joey. “He probably opens a sandwich shop in Venice Beach,” Matt LeBlanc pans and everyone laughs, like somehow that’s a funny and weird thing to do.
Anyway, I found myself feeling really sad because what Kauffman was getting at was that once people get married and have kids, which is what is expected of us unless we’re total weirdos, they don’t have time for their friends anymore. At least, not in the same way they once did. Of course, I’m a rational human being and I understand this is true, to some degree. Being a parent, even being a spouse, takes time, energy, and work. But I reject the idea that once people form their own nuclear families, their friends cease being part of that notion of family.
Because what happens to us Joeys, poor sandwich-shop owner Joey, with our potbellies and dad jokes and sad aloneness? Do we just work at the sandwich shop until we drop dead, no one to take care of us in our doddering old age? Or what happens to Monica and Chandler and Rachel and Ross and Phoebe and Mike when their kids grow up? Do they just stay home and stare at each other?
Mostly, I enjoy being alone. But there are times when it’s lonely and I get sad and it’s easy to spiral and think no one loves me, no one wants to hang out with me, everyone has better things to do. That the time for friends has passed and now that most people I know have partners and/or kids, they are too busy for frivolous things like their lonely, dumb, potbellied friends at the sandwich shop. Rationally, I know this is silly and untrue and honestly, owning a sandwich shop is time-consuming and fulfilling also! We are busy, too! Plus, at least Gizmo loves me! Most of the time.
But here I am, in a new city, on the edge of a post-pandemic life, and I don’t know where to go or who to be, though I am no longer in my 20s. Thing is, I need my friends, just as I need my family, and I hate that it sometimes feels weak or needy, to want to get drinks or watch TV with friends. I wish I could say, “I am lonely, please make me a priority for just a couple of hours because if you don’t, I have no one else but me.” But I can’t say that because society and Friends tells us that it’s not normal to need friends after a certain point.
This is a lot. But I guess I wanted to say that if you’re lonely, no matter what your circumstances, it’s okay to lean on your friends. That’s what they’re there for! There are whole songs about it! Don’t believe the voice in your head that tells you people are too busy, they don’t want to hear from you, no one has time for you. That voice is a liar. Also, it’s okay to feel lonely and sorry for yourself sometimes, especially on long rainy weekends. Lean into it. But remember you can always pick up the phone and call your friends instead of scrolling through Instagram and lamenting how much fun everyone is having without you.
Bright Spots
Below Deck is my new binging reality TV snack. It has lots of attractive people but they actually work hard and it also has annoying rich people who are kind of the butt of the joke. Highly addictive!
I finished reading Jo Ann Beard’s new collection, Festival Days, this weekend and it may have made me cry no less than five times. She is the kind of writer who is somehow able to completely inhabit someone else’s consciousness, even dogs, in a way that is totally convincing and beautiful and heartbreaking. I kind of hate her for it.
Jami Attenberg’s annual community writing project, #1000wordsofsummer, starts today (nailed it with this newsletter)! If you’re looking for some motivation on a writing project, you can sign up and get sent an email every morning for the next two weeks with words of encouragement to help you write 1000 words every day. I’ve done it in some form every year and I love it so much and I love Jami for doing it.
I regret to inform you that I am one of the sad, geriatric Millenials who loves Olivia Rodrigo’s album Sour. And I don’t mean it ironically. It is genuinely good and I want to listen to it all the time only it makes me feel too many feelings.