me: From the debut of Friends in 1994 to the finale of How I Met Your Mother in 2014, their popularity suggested we at least had a stable consensus on what an idealized modern life course *should* be: move to the city, fall in with a “tribe” of friends who form the core of your social life. Serially date a lot of people who you ultimately don’t make a good pairing with, but from that develop the ability to correctly identify who you DO make a good pair with, preparing you to make a lasting soulmate match. Likely this is a member of your tribe, if only for the same reason that high schoolers tend to date people from the same school - they’re the ones around that know you.
also me: Stable consensus, huh?
me: Excuse me?
also me: By the end of Friends the 34-year-old Ross had seen three different women marry him, the finale is that his soulmate/babymama turns down a career move to stay with him, which resolves both their character issues as established in 1994: HER reluctance to commit to a partner at the expense of chasing some dream of self-fulfillment and HIS frustration that women won’t commit to him, instead chasing some dream of self-fulfillment.
also me: Now the end of HIMYM, by contrast, Ted gives up on the soulmate he’s been orbiting for several years and takes the good-enough-and-available option out of a sense that it’s getting time for him to take the next step on his bourgeois life course.
also me: But that was just the fakeout ending, the real ending is that the soulmate gives him a chance, once she’s a 50-year-old lonely careerist who’s done with her multi-year phase of sleeping with the manipulative scumbag of the friend group.
me: ...
also me: Had you not noticed that?