Sitcom Friend Fall: Make Your Friendships Feel Like The Ones You See On TV
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Why do my real‑life friendships feel like a two‑month planning nightmare?
I had a close friend over the other day, and at the end of hanging out, we pulled out our phones and we spent literally five minutes trying to figure out the next date that works for both of us to hang out. And we made a plan for, hang on, let me actually check. It's wild. For two months, two months in the future. Meanwhile, I'm watching my favorite TV shows like Friends and New Girl and Adults and How I Met Your Mother, where they are all casually hanging out with each other basically every day. I really wish that my friendships felt like that, but most of my friends, this is how it normally goes. We make a plan, we get together, we have a drink or dinner, we catch up on each other's lives, and then we spend the last five minutes setting a date for another two months in the future.
So after seeing my friend, I asked myself, can real life friendships be as good as the friendships portrayed on TV? I dove into the sitcoms, all of my favorite sitcoms, and the science. And it turns out there are some very real steps that we can all take to reverse engineer sitcom friendships into our real adult lives, no matter where we live or how old we are. Welcome to the Liz Moody Podcast, where we believe that there is always something that you can do to create a life that feels amazing, and we help you figure out how to find the lever to pull at any moment to actually do that. But first, you may be wondering, Liz, what is a sitcom friendship? Well, think about the shows that I just mentioned.
They're these tight friend groups that feel more like family than like friends. They're having adventures together. They're plotting hijinks together. They're living life together in a way that feels really different than the way that most of my friendships feel, if I'm being very honest, where we live life separately and then we hang out for brief catch-ups. Like, do you remember the game show episode of Friends where they're doing trivia of each other's lives and that leads to Chandler and Joey taking over Rachel and Monica's apartment? And that just unfolded one day. Nobody was like, oh, I think we should do a trivia night of our lives and then I'll send out a party full invitation and then we'll meet up in like three months to do it.
Or I was just watching Adults, which is one of my favorite new sitcoms. And the entire first episode is this whole friend group coming together to lie to the co-workers of one of the characters and convince them that this guy ran a marathon when he absolutely did not. And it just feels so fun. I'm like, this seems like so much more fun than just going out and getting a coffee or a matcha together. And on sitcom friendships, there is this deeper level of investment in each other's lives. They are each other's people. In Schitt's Creek, Stevie is about to star in Cabaret, but right before opening night, she panics and she goes missing. And David finds her and he gives her this very specific, very David-esque pep talk that was exactly what she needed to hear in that moment.
Or Michael showing up for Pam's gallery show in the office. Or when Nick makes the birthday video for Jess in New Girl that makes her feel so seen. Sitcom friends care about knowing each other and making each other feel so loved. I also want to say this very, very clearly. Longing for sitcom friendships is not trivial and it is not silly. We need this. We are in a loneliness epidemic. There is research that shows that social isolation is as bad for our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And as somebody who used to do that, I would say that's pretty bad. We're also moving around more than we ever have historically. So we don't live in the same place as many of our friends. I know I have friends in London.
I have friends in New York. I have friends in LA. It makes it really hard to both keep those friendships, but also because we can keep in touch with people who do live far away, there's less impetus to make friends directly where we are. So it's a double whammy. And the number one thing that I hear from people is that they don't have a group of sitcom friends because they think something is wrong with them or something is wrong with the people around them.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why do my real‑life friendships feel like a two‑month planning nightmare?
0:00–4:44
2
How can sitcoms and scientific research reveal steps to stronger friendships?
4:44–8:30
3
What makes sitcom friendships feel like family rather than casual catch‑ups?
8:30–13:35
4
Why is the loneliness epidemic a barrier to sitcom‑level friendships?
13:35–17:52
5
How does physical proximity predict the formation of close friends?
17:52–22:05
6
What are micro‑cultures and in‑group jokes, and how do they deepen bonds?
22:05–26:11
7
How can creating a ‘third place’ ritual help build sitcom‑style friendships?
26:11–29:41
8
Why should I hide my phone during hang‑outs to boost connection?
29:41–31:34
Speakers
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