New Girl, Friends, and HIMYM

Monica, Lily & CC

The Other Woman

Now I will say right off the bat that this comparison is the stretchiest, I can draw some pretty strong similarities but the results of their personality types are so drastically different.

So let's start with Monica, because of the length I had to go to in my mind to group these women together we are going through their personality types as well as their romantic relationships. Monica is very type A, clean, organized, and needs everything in a specific way. Let's start with her and Richard, who realistically were only together for a few episodes but it felt longer than that because their connection was incredible. Monica is exactly the kind of person who would go for someone older, we all loved this relationship but it's best not to think about it too hard because if you do it all unravels. He’s known her since she was a child…that's super duper creepy and a major problem. To clarify the problem is not that he is so much older then her, it's that he literally watched her grow up. Putting that aside so that we can focus on the relationship, their chemistry is magnetic. Breaking up because they realized that they were in very different places in their lives was so upsetting but very mature. The fact that he kept coming back around and tugging at her emotions was very realistic and the acting made their storyline more than worth it.

Lily and Marshall are another iconic sitcom couple, and at the beginning of the audience's journey with their relationship she kind of sucked. Just before they were supposed to get married Lily left Marshall, and went to San Francisco. She didn’t call, she didn’t communicate with him with what was bothering her beforehand. Didn’t tell him about her interview for this art program. She didn’t even bother telling him that art was something that she really wanted to pursue. Marshall would have been so understanding. He would have done everything he could to make sure that she had everything she needed and wanted and she threw away his love, kindness and support. The San Francisco situation alone wouldn’t make Lily a bad person but then we get into the fact that she comes saddled with an immense amount of credit card debt that she lied to him about and expected him to pay off with his lawyer money. A partner willingly agreeing to take on your debt is one thing, expecting your partner to take on your debt however is entirely different.

Cece and Schmit are obviously who we are going to focus on. Now though we already discussed Schmit’s role in their relationship problems, Cece is not blameless. Cece, especially at the beginning, had a nasty habit of toying with Schmit. She only slept with him or showed him any kind of attention when it was convenient for her. She treated him really badly at the beginning of their “connection”. Also I know this wasn’t necessarily bad person behavior but calling off her wedding, at the altar, and then putting him on the spot in front of his current girlfriend was bad form. A normal human person would have talked to Elizabeth and then Schmit and then he would have had to make a decision. Doing all of her shit publicly was a bit much, yes I get it it's a TV show. But the thing about this brand of sitcoms is that they are character based and that means that the characters driving the story should feel and act like humans.

Monica and Pete, in all of Monica’s relationships she knows what she wants and if she doesn’t get it then she is strong enough to walk away. That is something that I really love about her character, I think we all wished at one point that we were strong enough to do that. Now here he is far more problematic than she is, he keeps pursuing her after she said no several times and now we are setting a trend of Monica being in relationships with problematic men. That said Pete kind of grew on me, they eventually had chemistry but they always seemed more friendly to me then romantic.

Cece and Robbie were kind of awkward. It really felt like Cece was overcompensating. Schmit hurt her, and went back to being a player and Cece over-corrected by dating someone who is kind, sweet and submissive. And though her wanting to get married and have kids might be what broke them up, if they had stayed together I firmly believe she would have gotten bored and gone back to Schmit, as she did when she was supposed to get married.

And last but not least Monica and Chandler. My favorite friends couple, really one of my favorite sitcom couples in general. Friends to lovers is one of my favorite tropes in general but this was the slowest burn. They also both had so much growth throughout their relationship. Chandler learned how to commit, Monica learned how to be more patient. We’ve pointed out that in her other relationships she left when she knew the relationships weren’t going in the direction she wanted, but with Chandler they both knew all the details going in. He knew that she wanted to get married and have kids, she knew that he had commitment issues yet they dealt with that together. Monica waited for him to catch up to her emotional maturity and helped him figure out how relationships worked and honestly their interactions were beautiful and they communicated so well with each other.

These three women are very different but every single one of them is the best friend of the main female protagonist of their shows. And These are the relationships that get the second most amount of screen time in their ensemble casts.