How Nineties and 2000s Television Made Us Believe in the Myth of the “Nice Guy”
The likes of Ross Geller, Ted Mosby, and Dawson Leery were horrible, yet they’re what my teenage self wanted in a partner
Why did the worst male characters in nineties and early 2000s TV shows always get the happy ending?
Ross Geller from FRIENDS. Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM). J.D. from Scrubs. They and countless others all got their happily ever afters with the girl of their dreams.
Back then, these characters were the “nice guys.” The ones TV taught young women like me to look for in real life.
Except, they weren’t nice. They were whiny, manipulative, gaslighting, fat-phobic, and predatory.
Yet they were our blueprint for love.
Because here’s the thing. I — and millions of other now-adult women — grew up in a world where TV and film were two of our main cultural references. They had a huge influence on us.
As teenagers, we believed in the characters and storylines they fed us. We talked about them at school, had posters on our walls, and hoped that one day, we would be lucky enough to find such a “nice” guy for ourselves.
