According to very rigorous calculations (in short) of specialized internet forums, the characters of Friends , began the series with twenty years and finished it almost at the edge of the forties. When a series is more than a series these things happen: forums, calculations, the absurd. But determining the age of fictional characters may make sense in this case: Friends is the great television story about not wanting to grow . About eternal adolescence.
If they were still alive, some fifty Chandler and Ross would fight over limited edition shoes and Joey would practice CrossFit. And everyone would continue to live in flats that, if they were already implausible at the time, would generate thousands of outraged tweets per episode. There is only something more absurd than calculating the ages of Friends' characters: the New York real estate market. It has also been estimated how much Monica's apartment would cost today: about two million dollars. Or a minimum of four thousand monthly rent. She paid a small fraction of that figure. Something between the real bargain (controlled rent apartments in New York exist, but they are so scarce that they almost touch the legendary) and real estate science fiction.
Sex in New York was accused of the latter: it was zero credible that its protagonist, a newspaper columnist (in short), could afford such a floor. However, the series of Sarah Jessica Parker could defend herself with a word that at that time was only being born: aspirational. Sex in New York was a fantasy of escape. Friends , in a way, too: that of never growing, never maturing, never abandoning your friends. Because nothing bad can happen when you are with your, ahem, friends .
This premise, common in television comedies, Friends made it their only law: there is nothing above friendship, not even the passage of time . Other comparable series do subject their characters to the pressure of the years going faster and faster: the grandmothers of The Golden Girls were able to talk about death and the ambitious gañanes of The Entourage were overwhelmed when youth escaped between the fingers. Friends never did that.
In Monica's apartment there was neither delirious revaluation of the Manhattan floor nor traumatic birthdays. And if they did ... it wasn't for much. Rachel's 30 were an endearing joke. About 30 aspirational. For Friends , literally and figuratively, the years do not pass.
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