“Fun Bobby” Should’ve Stayed Home
(And Other Self-Care Tips For People Pleasers.)
I was a legit teenager in the mid-1990s, a time when wearing jellies from Delia’s and tuning into Friends every Thursday night was mandatory for social participation. If you showed up to middle school without, OMG, seeing that crazy thing Ross said to Rachel or being able to recap how Joey derped derptastically through some safely wacky situation, then you were dead air at the lunch table. As if.
Friends is a fun show. For a sensitive, creative kid who didn’t ever really feel like I belonged, Friends was kind of a shortcut to community—both on the screen, getting to virtually participate in their shenanigans, and in my own life, where the young people around me used the show as a Rosetta Stone for adult feelings and situations. We would post-mortem episodes and say stuff like, “When I’m in my 20s…” It was all part of that delicate spot between being an actual child and a young adult. These were some of the cultural examples us 90s kids had of adult life, and we were soaking it all in—for better or worse.
Speaking of worse: The tragedy of “Fun Bobby.”
“Fun Bobby,” a dude who is touted as hilarious, interesting and social, shows up in a 1994 episode where the gang throws a New Year’s Eve party. Invited both as Monica’s pre-Chandler beard AND a chaos agent to liven things up, Fun Bobby appears as, well, not at all fun. He shows up stone-faced, tear-stricken and heartbroken, breaking the news that his grandfather just died and, stranded in New York for the holiday, he decided to come to the party. The show uses this premise to gaslight the audience into thinking that it’s HILARIOUS that a person called “Fun So-and-So” could be so NOT FUN at a party.
Even as a 15-year-old kid, I knew something was rotten in that inappropriately subletted Manhattan miracle apartment. Here was a man who was crying—not something my young self had seen outside of funerals and even then it was stoic and “dignified”—and these people who are supposed to be his “Friends” are making fun of him for being sad because someone he loved died. I darted my eyes around the room to see if anyone was reading this situation as I was (“This is fucked up!”) but nope! Studio laughter from a live audience. Like all middle-school-aged feelings that went outside of the groupthink thing we had going on in the suburbs, I stuffed it down and fake-laughed it up.
Over twenty years later, I still think about this episode. STILL. I think about Fun Bobby and the kinship I felt with him every time I felt like my very human feelings were dismissed or derided. I realized that we were a lot alike, Fun Bobby and me, because I’m a people-pleaser too. Fun Bobby was the life of the party to help others loosen up and when he shifted to Real Bobby people couldn’t hang. I see you, Bobby. I have spent a good portion of my life being Happy Sarah or Helpful Sarah because I was scared that Real Sarah or Messy Sarah wouldn’t be allowed entry to the belonging lounge. (“Sorry miss—this ticket says it’s only good if you send your cheerful, successful, pulled-together representative.”)
In a later episode, it’s revealed that “Fun Bobby” is an alcoholic and is renamed “Dull Bobby” when he’s sober—so dull that Monica takes up binge drinking to cope with what a dud this former stud has turned into. First, with “Friends” like that, no shit he was an alcoholic. He shows up to a place he thought was full of humans who could help hold space for his grief and was met with ridicule because he wasn’t performing at the level they demanded of him. He let a crack in his humanity and masculinity show by being truly vulnerable, and it was met with was the humiliation of everyone being like, “Um, okkkaaayyy… but you’re supposed to be fun though...” I bet he left that party, went straight to the first bar he saw and drank himself under three to four tables to drown out those awful feelings—being vulnerable and then totally dismissed.
[SIDENOTE: For shame, “Friends.” On behalf of your emotional betrayal of Bobby, I now rename you “Assholes” because, unlike your theme song says, you will not be there for others. You will abandon them when people stop being polite and start getting real. (I’m mixing my metaphors/90s shows, but I’m emotional right now.)]
As a sensitive soul like Bobby, I have learned over the years how to process my own feelings and evaluate the level of interaction I actually need in a given moment. I’ve had my own moments of showing up to the proverbial NYE party desperately needing kindness and compassion, while finding only booze and emptiness. From that place, here are three things I’ve learned about self-care to save future “Fun Bobbys” from feeling that they need to people-please their feelings away.
- Stay Home Sometimes. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s important: Stay home and sit with your feelings when things are raw. Going out might distract you, but it will rarely help (especially with “Friends” like Bobby’s). Process what’s happening, breathe and do something nice for yourself, like having a cup of tea or taking a bath. Cry. Write. Scream. Feel your muthafucking feelings, boo.
- Reach Out Strategically. Identify one person you can reach out to that will listen to you. I’m not going to name all the people this can be because your life has a different shape than mine—you know who this person can be. The only qualification for this person is the ability to listen with love and without judgement. Just don’t forget that your confidant can be a therapist, too. Sometimes that’s the safest when you don’t know who you can safely open up to.
- Orient Yourself. You are a human being. You have thoughts and feelings, many of which are inconvenient or messy or just plain-ass not fun. You’re not a vessel for everyone else’s enjoyment or ridicule. You deserve the space to show up as who you are, not the representative you’ve designated worthy of interacting with others. Being yourself orients you in the world and helps you find where you actually belong.
For my Fun Bobbys and Helpful Sarahs and Really Smart Ryans and Devoted Devons out there, don’t let fair-weather “Friends” get you down.
