Television and movies have long given us unrealistic expectations for romantic relationships. There are rarely any perfectly timed meet-cutes or mad dashes to the airport, and the chances of an ironic misunderstanding that lead you to the love of your life are slim to none. But less attention has been devoted to how television and movies shape our perception of friendships, too, in ways that don't always reflect reality.
Modern adult friendships aren't just challenging to create and maintain — some evidence suggests they are also in
decline. Twenty-two percent of millennials in a
2019 YouGov poll said they had "no friends," compared to 16 percent of Gen Xers and 9 percent of baby boomers. The reasons can be pinned on a variety of factors: Americans today lead increasingly busy lives, and as members of our friend groups grow into their careers and relationships, incomes and
schedules start to vary. People move away for new jobs or to be closer to family. Distance and time become barriers in a way they weren't when everyone was young, single, and devoted to their found families.
But you'd never know that from watching television. From
Friends to
Living Single to
Grey's Anatomy to
New Girl, TV reinforces the fantasy that true friendships are and should be deeply close but require no real effort to maintain. It's a stark difference from the way we know friendships operate in our own lives — as meaningful but sometimes fleeting relationships that can eventually dissolve because we have no language, script, or social expectation for how to seriously integrate friendships into our adult lives.
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