Friends, New Girl & HIMYM

Joey, Barney & Schmitt

The Womanizer

This is possibly the most direct comparison, as all of these men are written to be redeemable and charming and charismatic but if you think about their actions, they are absolutely terrible people.

I like to analyze who a person is based on how they behave in relationships. I think how you treat other people is extremely telling and shows who you truly are so we will be starting with Joey and Kathy. Now the only thing people seem to remember from this whole situation is that Kathy cheated on Joey with Chandler, what the general audience fails to remember is that at the exact same time Joey was cheating on Kathy with a random woman he met that morning. Chandler and Kathy only had the opportunity to do anything because Joey was on a date and their car broke down. He says it in season 1 “When I’m going out with a woman I need to know that I’m going out with more people then she is”. He prides himself on being a cheater and a womanizer.

When discussing Barney it really shouldn’t be a surprise that it's in a negative tone. So Barney and Nora, obviously he cheated on her but I would like to focus more on the beginning of their relationship when he literally couldn’t stop lying to her. It's a compulsion, I don’t buy the whole “well it's different with her” excuse these men seem to use because he later proved that it was in fact not different. Barney often brags about his insanely high body count, now I am not one to casual sex shame anyone, however there is a difference between casual sexual freedom and treating women as conquests. This relationship was definitely just the thrill of the chase for him and once he had her, he immediately took her for granted and didn’t want her anymore.

Moving onto New Girl and Schmitt and Cece, I have just so much to say about this…so first of all he immediately treats her as an object and as something that he wanted to have, as in possess. He also fetishizes her culture throughout the entire show, the writing plays it off as cute and flirty but it's really really not. It's just gross and disrespectful. She also rejects him several times and over and over again yet he keeps trying, now it's things like this that make men think this is okay to do in real life. Wearing someone down is not a flex, it's not cute, it's not romantic, it's creepy. So there's all of that and then the fact that they get together, after she leaves someone at the altar for him, and then he cheats on her…an action many in the New Girl fanbase call out of character, but the reality is it's not out of character at all, it's entirely expected for Schmit to handle this situation selfishly.

So this next one itself wasn’t bad but the result of it was, Joey and Kate. So Joey becomes kind of infatuated with her despite her being mean to him and her being in a relationship, and when she rejects him he sleeps with her understudy and they start dating. Then when he finally gets attention from Kate he dumps the understudy, treating her like nothing more than a speed bump on his way to happiness with Kate. So yeah their relationship itself doesn’t have any major flaws but the fact that it has collateral damage is a problem.

I actually just got to this episode recently, Barney and Robin. Barney falls “in love” with Robin, this is in quotes because he was still his regular man-whore self. Lily was absolutely correct in that you can not claim to be in love with someone while screwing everything with a pulse, that's not how it works. But he finally tells Robin how he feels about her and these two do this stupid little dance. They both have feelings but they both hate commitment. Their actual relationship worked really well, they were very well suited for each other I think breaking them up was the world's dumbest writing decision, making them divorce was even worse. But his realization and pursuit was worse than the actual relationship.

Schmitt and Elizabeth, let's start with the fact that the only reason he contacted her was so that he could have a plus one to Cece’s wedding, so he went into the relationship with an agenda. He went in knowing all he wanted was to try and make Cece jealous, or make himself feel more comfortable at her wedding. Then we have the fact that he put her through the wedding itself, where he spent the entire time trying to sabotage the event because he was still in love with the bride. And then he continues to date her while also dating Cece…cheating on two women that love and trust him at once. So sorry Schmit fans but he is in fact a bad person, his entire relationship with Elizabeth proves that.

Joey and his other girls; Joey has a parade of women throughout the show, some of which we only hear about but he constantly dismisses them and can’t be bothered to even treat them as human beings. There are several moments where he comes to terms with the fact that he has treated women like crap (the scene where he calls his past one night stands and apologizes for his treatment) however that doesn’t change his actual actions.

Barney and his other girls; Barney often brags about having a body count over 200, now let's pretend that that isn’t the problem here, the real issue lies in the nature of the conquests. For that is exactly how he treats them. He keeps a scrapbook of the women he's slept with, he has a playbook full of lies he tells women to get them to sleep with him. That level of dishonesty and manipulation is considered rape by the way. He can even rank these women's tournament style based on how bad the things he's done to them are, that's psychopathic. Barney Stinson is also a bad person.

Schmitt and his other girls; Schmitt keeps a lost and found box full of things girls left there, he parades these beautiful women in front of his friends so that they can appreciate his conquests. Schmitt is also a bad person.

Really these men are nothing more than a case study in good writing because the internet is full of women who love Joey and Schmitt and think they are charming and sweet when the reality is that they are womanizing cheaters.