What Phoebe Buffay can teach us about love and relationships

Could the Friends’ strangest character have made the most consistent healthy relationship choices?

Let’s talk about Friends. 

Despite already being in re-runs by the time I was old enough to watch (perhaps I’m showing my age), Friends was the first adult sitcom that really drew me in, while I would never claim it as my favourite sitcom, as a self-declared connoisseur of the genre, I have always seen it as an important moment in television history. It’s also one of a handful of sitcoms where my enjoyment and perspective on it has changed dramatically with time. 

It appears to be fairly popular knowledge at this point that Friends is not aging well. Between the homophobic and fat jokes,and the toxic Ross/Rachel relationship, it’s all a little cringy, and not in a good way. While I can take Friends in the context of the time when it was actively on television - when no one thought twice about whether or not it was offensive to make jokes about Chandler’s father, a trans-woman running a cabaret show in Vegas, and let myself off the hook for watching it out of nostalgia, I don’t believe we need to throw the baby out with the bath water. The reason I believe this, is Phoebe. 

Growing up, Phoebe was probably my least favourite character on the show. She was over the top, zany, and unrelateable compared to the other female characters, both of whom were young Jewish women struggling to make it in New York. But now that I find myself the same age as Rachel was when she burst into Central Perk in a wedding dress, if I had to pick a character to model myself after, it would probably be Phoebe. 

When you think of the important romantic relationships on Friends, I highly doubt Phoebe is a character who comes to mind. Definitely, you think of Ross and Rachel, who's on-again-off-again relationship forms a key plot point through all 10 seasons. You probably also think of Chandler and Monica who represent the loving, supportive, stable, accepting sort of relationship that Marshall and Lily would later represent on How I Met Your Mother, the show that I feel most heavily draws on Friends. It makes sense that Phoebe would not be on this list. Over Friends’ decade-long run, Phoebe only has a handful of relationships of significance. By this I mean a relationship that lasted more than one episode, consecutively or non-consecutive. Because all of Phoebe’s relationships are with men who were not members of the central group of six (a side point to why her relationships were healthier beyond the reasons that will be discussed), they tend not to appear very often and so always feel like side plots intended to provide some relief from the Ross-Rachel drama that consumes so much of the series. Looking closer, however, I would argue that Phoebe is the best relationship role model on the show. 

Gary

In season 5, Phoebe has a four-episode arc with a cop named Gary. They meet after Phoebe find’s Gary’s police badge and very soon thereafter embark on their romantic journey. The pair appear to be a good match who are deeply enamored with each other. Their relationship comes to a screeching halt when, the first morning after they move in together, Gary shoots a bird who is singing through the window. While the abrupt end to their relationship was no doubt added in for comedic effect, the fact that shooting the bird signified the end speaks to something about Phoebe that is not often represented by the other women in the show. 

Phoebe is not willing to compromise her core values to be with someone. We see very frequently that Phoebe has strong convictions, particularly when it comes to animals, and Gary shooting the bird is directly in conflict with those. Rather than letting it slide or changing who she is to be with him, she walks away. 

Mike

In the last season of the show, Phoebe gets married to Mike. They meet as a result of a deal she has with Joey that they will set each other up on blind dates. After Joey forgets to procure a date for Phoebe, he simply calls the name “Mike” at Central Perk, and it is Phoebe’s future husband, depicted by Paul Rudd, who answers the call. Mike and Phoebe provide each other with opportunities to explore what they want out of life and relationships in a deeper way. Mike, a divorcee, grapples with whether he is willing to get married again, and Phoebe, a free-spirit, grapples with whether she wants some aspects of a more “traditional” life. 

Providing the characters with the opportunity to explore these multifaceted parts of their identity, including engaging in conversations about the struggles to understand what it is they want out of life and their relationships, is meaningful. Phoebe is learning how to find the balance between the person she has been for so long, and the things that she would like out of her future. She actively goes through the steps of discovering that there are elements of traditional life such as getting married and having children that she wants to experience, but without depicting these things as oppressive or the end of her adventurous life. 

David

David is arguably the most significant romantic relationship that Phoebe has over the course of the series, and so while this is out of order, I felt it was worthwhile to save the best for last. 

David first appears in season one of the show when Phoebe confronts him after his conversation interrupts her performance at Central Perk. The two are immediately smitten, but their romance is cut short when David’s research takes him to Belarus. David would continue to make infrequent appearances in Phoebe’s life throughout the run of the show, always portrayed as the great love forever out of reach. Shortly after Phoebe and Mike break up, David appears back in Phoebe’s life, but this time is back living in New York and their relationship will finally be possible. 

For a show that, at that point, was beginning to wrap up storylines, it did something with Phoebe and David’s relationship that in its own way subverts. Rather than sending Phoebe off to a happily ever after with the love interest who had been teased through the the decade-long run of the series, it allowed Phoebe a moment of personal growth. Despite all of the love that she had felt for David when he first went to Belarus and the emotional ups and downs of her fleeting encounters with him in the intervening years, he was no longer the right person for her. 

In deciding not to marry David, Phoebe portrayed the difficulty of reconciling what we once wanted, perhaps for years, and what we need in the present. It would have been so easy for Phoebe to fall into the trap of ending up with David because he is who she wanted to be with for so long, it is a trap that we see other characters on the same show fall into - Rachel getting off the plane. Instead, she decides to let go of this relationship that she has wanted for long, and that may have been right once, but is no longer so. 

Phoebe as a role model for making good choices in relationships does not save Friends. It is still a show with many flaws, and those of us who grew up watching and loving it will need to make decisions about how handle that. But, it is a reminder that not every part of Friends is a problem and we may not want to write off those parts of it as quickly.